India sends most educated immigrants to US: Study

An underappreciated recent US immigration trend is the rising number of immigrants who hold university-level degrees with India providing the largest number of college graduates (20%), according to a new study.

India also sends almost three fourths (72%) of highly skilled workers on H1B visas and the second highest number of students (267,000, or 25%), according to a study of college-educated immigrants in the United States by Migration Policy Institute, (MPI), a Washington, DC-based think tank,

The study provides a demographic and socioeconomic profile of the US- and foreign-born population with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and highlights recent trends in and characteristics of H-1B specialty occupation workers and international students.

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Recently arrived immigrants in particular had university education with 48% of those coming to the United States within the 2018-22 period having a college degree, the study found.

The immigrant population overall slightly outperforms on educational attainment, representing 17% of all college-educated adults ages 25 and older in the United States, even as they were slightly less than 14% of the total US population as of 2022.

In 2022, the top countries of origin for all college-educated immigrants were India (14%), China (including Hong Kong; about 8%), the Philippines (7%), and Mexico (6%), according to the study.

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These countries were among the top senders of immigrant college graduates who arrived from 2018 to 2022, but a larger share came from India (20%).

The number of total H-1B petitions (for both initial and continuing employment) filed and approved has fluctuated over the last 15 years in response to economic trends and policy changes.

Recessions in 2001 and 2008 as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, for instance, decreased demand for H-1B workers in following years. When the economy rebounds, US employers typically petition for a higher number of visas, the study noted.

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The H-1B program has been primarily used by information-technology companies, and the share of computer-related workers among all approved H-1B petitions has increased significantly since 2010, reaching a high of 70% in 2017, and remaining generally above 65%.

Close to two-thirds of approved H-1B petitions (251,000) in fiscal year (FY) 2023 were for workers in computer-related occupations, mainly systems analysts and programmers.

As of FY 2023, other top occupational groups of beneficiaries with approved H-1B petitions included those in architecture and engineering, education, administrative services, and medical fields (including physicians and surgeons).

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In FY 2023, more than 72% of approved H-1B petitions were for workers from India, followed by those from China (nearly 12%), and the Philippines and Canada (about 1% apiece).

Together with South Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Taiwan, Brazil, and Nepal, the top ten countries of origin accounted for 90% of all 386,300 approved petitions.

The number of international students enrolled in US higher education institutions has more than doubled since 1990, from 408,000 in the 1990-91 school year to 1,057,000 in 2022-23, according to the Institute of International Education. Over this period, the share of international students enrolled in US higher education grew from 2.9% to 5.6%.

The total number of international students has fluctuated in the past decade, rising from 886,000 in 2013-14 to nearly 1.1 million in 2018-19, then falling to 914,000 in 2020-21, in part due to the pandemic and greater restrictions from the Trump administration.

In 2022-23, about 19% of all international students were on OPT, which allows them to gain US work experience related to their field of study,

down from 22% in 2020-21 but much higher than the 12% in 2013-14.

Asia is the primary sending region of international students in the United States. In the 2022-23 school year, the 748,000 students from Asia accounted for 71% of the nearly 1.1 million international students enrolled in US higher education institutions.

Mainland China (290,000 students, or 27% of all international students) and India (267,000, or 25%) accounted for more than half of all international students, with South Korea (44,000), Canada (28,000), and Vietnam and Taiwan (22,000 apiece) rounding the top six.

Math and computer science, engineering, and business and management were the most popular fields of study for international students in 2022-23. Together, they accounted for 57% of the total.

Graduate students accounted for 44% (467,000) of all international students in 2022-23, followed by undergraduates (33% or 348,000) and nondegree students (4% or 44,000).

Individuals pursuing OPT accounted for the remaining 19%. Between 2013-14 and 2022-23, the number of graduate students increased by 42%, while the number of undergraduates fell by 6%.

College-educated immigrants are likely to be proficient in English, with 74 percent reporting speaking only English or speaking English “very well” in 2022, according to the study. They also tend to be much more proficient in spoken English than immigrant adults without a four-year college degree (41% in 2022).

Highly skilled immigrants are more likely to have advanced degrees than their US-born counterparts. In 2022, 15% of immigrant college graduates held professional or doctoral degrees, compared to 11% of their US-born counterparts. Both groups were roughly equally likely to have a master’s degree (30%) for the foreign born and 28 percent for the native born).

About 35% of all immigrant adults (14.1 million people) had a bachelor’s degree or higher as of 2022, roughly similar to the 36% of all US-born adults (67.8 million) who graduated college.

The number of college-educated US immigrants has grown rapidly since 1990. This population increased by 89% between 1990 and 2000, 55% between 2000 and 2010, and 56% between 2010 and 2022.

The native-born college-educated population also has grown, but at a slower pace, by 32%, 26%, and 40%, respectively. The faster growth of the high-skilled immigrant population means that their share of all college-educated adults in the United States also has increased over the last three decades, from 10% in 1990 to 17% in 2022.

In 2022, immigrants accounted for 18% of all civilian employed workers, according to the study . However, they were a much higher shares of workers in occupations that typically require a college degree, including representing 44% of computer hardware engineers, 34% of computer and information research scientists, and 29% of physicians.

Thanks to its labor market mix and well-known universities and research centers, California had the largest number of immigrants with college degrees, with approximately 3.1 million (or 22% of all college-educated immigrants in the United States) in 2022.

Florida, Texas, and New York were each home to about 1.4 million (10%). These four states accounted for 51% of the 14.1 million immigrant college graduates in the country. The next six states—New Jersey (6%); Illinois (4%); and Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, and Maryland (about% apiece)—accounted for another 22% combined.

While immigrants comprised 17% of all college-educated adults nationally, their share was much higher in California (31%), New Jersey (28%), New York and Florida (25% each), and Nevada, Maryland, and Texas (21%).

Immigrant college graduates tend to be younger and are more likely to be of prime working age (25 to 54) than their native-born counterparts, according to the study. In 2022, 68% of college-educated immigrants were younger than 55 years old, compared to 61% of those born in the United States.

Immigrant college graduates are also more likely to have college-educated spouses than their US-born counterparts, according to the study. About 70% of college-educated immigrant adults and 63% of their US-born peers in 2022 were married to people with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

College-educated immigrants’ rate of civilian labor force participation was quite similar to that of their native-born counterparts (75% and 73%, respectively) in 2022. Both groups were more likely to participate in the labor force than peers without a college degree (63% and 57%, respectively). Unemployment rates in general were low in 2022.

College-educated immigrants were approximately as likely to be unemployed as their native-born counterparts that year (3% and 2%, respectively); among adults without college degrees, the unemployment rate was about 4% regardless of nativity.

College-educated immigrant workers are more likely than their native-born counterparts to be in high-tech, science, and engineering occupations. In 2022, 13% of college-educated immigrants were employed in computer and mathematics occupations, versus 6% of their US-born counterparts.

The top five occupational groups for immigrant college graduates were management (16%), computer and mathematical occupations (13%), health practitioners and technicians (11%), business and financial operations (10%), and education and related occupations (9%).

For US-born college graduates, the top five occupation groups were management (18%), education and related occupations (13%), business and financial operations (11%), health practitioners and technicians (11%), and sales and related occupations (7%).

Although immigrants accounted for 18% of total civilian employed workers in 2022, they represented much higher shares of college-educated workers in certain occupational groups such as health-care support and computer and mathematics occupations

In 2022, approximately 2.1 million college-educated immigrants in the US labor market (around 20% of college-educated immigrants) were either unemployed or working in low-skilled jobs including as dishwashers, security guards, or taxi drivers, often because of difficulty getting their credentials recognized or other hurdles.

This situation represents a waste of human capital (also referred to as “brain waste” or underemployment) that also affects approximately 7.8 million US-born college graduates (16% of US-born graduates), the study noted.

Overall, the median household income of college-educated immigrants was slightly larger than that of their US-born counterparts ($122,000 versus $113,000) in 2022.

However, college-educated immigrants were more likely to be in poverty (7% versus 4%) due to a combination of factors including larger family size and a higher level of underemployment.

In contrast, 14% of the total foreign-born population and 12% of the total native-born population lived in poverty as defined by US Census Bureau with an income below $29,700 for a family of four in 2022.