The American Dream, is doing MS in USA worth enough with the current situation on H1-B, F1, and EAD?
I have been interacting with my friends, colleagues, professional acquittances and students regularly on the professional education and employment streams. With the current cloud over H1-B visas and anti-immigration sentiments, one common question that comes up in every conversation is ‘Is doing MS in USA worth enough with the current situation on H1-B, F1, and EAD?’. There are a different set of answers people bring in for this question. Of course, there can be umpteen number of answers for a single question but shouldn’t there be an objective answer to understand if it is worth or not? I sat down with my drawing board to find out, based on my conversation with educationalists, professionals, professors, students, entrepreneurs, executives and hiring managers, I would like to sum up the whole MS-Immigration reform scenario to help all those curious and anxious minds.
Before even getting into the meat of the topic, let’s have the road set up for the audience. Just for standardization purposes, I am considering MS to be a 32 to 40 credit course that would cost somewhere around $60,000 to finish the course in 2 years. Typically, (Immigration)students are granted an F1 visa to study and provided with an OPT for 3 years for the internships which some people use it for full-time jobs. An H1-B visa sponsorship from an employer is needed beyond OPT to continue as a legal immigrant in the United States.
Sample MS Expense:
Sample MS Data Analytics Structure:
Source: Quora
Coming to the interesting part, the answer to the question ‘Is doing MS in USA worth enough with the current situation on H1-B, F1 and EAD?’ is not going to be straight. I will have to split the question itself into multiple categories to tailor the answers for a different set of people. Here are the broad categories (at least for Indians) among immigrants who want to pursue a coveted MS degree in the USA.
- The Nerds we all know in our college days, who for sure will end up as an entrepreneur, research scholar or in Silicon Valley.
- The cash-rich kiddo who wants to add that one USA degree to his name.
- The hopeless professional who always thinks to go to the USA to pursue MS (and come back soon) is the end of the struggles.
- The USA affectionate person who always dreamt of settling down in the USA and wants to use MS as an entry gate.
- The mediocre who thinks he can make it to the USA and have the capability to come out with flying colors after completing MS.
Now that the categories are vetted out, let us step into each of the categories to find out how best the question can be answered.
1. The Nerds we all know in our college days, who for sure will end up as an entrepreneur, research scholar or in Silicon Valley.
Short Answer: Yes, it is worth to do MS in any situation for these guys.
Long Answer: Forget about the anti-immigration sentiments, forget about Trump, forget about people, the elite is always on top of the world and are destined to drive the world. If you are reading this blog here to evaluate if you are in this category be sure that you are not. I am talking about those elite, creamy, weird, scintillating nerds who on any day can crack an interview or an exam or a computer.
A typical nerd would get admitted to elite institutions and it is going to be tough for them to not get an elite job or pursue good quality research. In spite of the anti-immigration/ anti visa sentiments, no one has the power to stop the likes of Google, Facebook, Oracle, Amazon, etc. from applying an H1B for a deserving elite candidate. These companies are not bound by a government or a country, they dictate the terms. So be sure that any law that is going to be drafted out will do no harm to these companies, just because the reciprocations caused by the companies will be huge for any Government to handle and never in the wild dreams a Government will wish for it. In addition to this, the ‘BIG’ companies always have an army of attorneys who will act as a strong firewall to their employees, protecting their needs and rights. So the people under this category have already figured out their path and they will break any barrier to reach the USA just because no barrier is big enough for them. A person who pursues MS from this category will settle up with a 6 figure salary job or go towards a high-quality research. The decision to do MS is justified monetarily and intellectually.
2. The cash-rich kiddo who wants to add that one USA degree to his name.
Short Answer: Yes, it is worth to do MS in any situation for these guys.
Long Answer: I am not going to speak more for you folks, you can hire a better writer to justify your point. In a nutshell, nothing has changed for you guys, you still can get the M&S appended to your name and do what you wish to do.
3. The hopeless professional who always thinks to go to the USA to pursue MS (and come back soon) is the end of the struggles.
Short Answer: No, it is not worth to do MS in the current situation for these guys.
Long Answer: Let us assume you are a 3-year experienced professional working for big corporations in India and getting a salary of 10 lakhs per annum with 5 lakhs net savings. If you are not happy with the current life, be it for lesser pay or because of micromanagement or because of the one shiny girl or boy who got the undeserved first bucket this time. I wish, you better be happy, the road ahead with the MS path is going to be bumpy and ugly.
Here is how it goes. You take up a loan or INR 40 lakhs to pursue MS, you take 2+ years for MS and spend 40 lakhs minus the savings you make in India, let us keep it as INR 50 lakhs in total.
Following are few statistics in this context
Following are few statistics in this context
· You need 3 years to repay this loan. Minus 15 lakhs savings in India for 3 years.
· You lose 2 years of progressive work experience
· No assurance that you will again gain a job in your interest area.
· That means you need to start with your career again.
· You come back to India and settle down for 15 lakhs per annum job. Just in case if you decide to stay back in the USA, read out category 4 and 5.
· You will be 1 or 2 positions lower than what you would have been if you stayed in India.
· So, this all means in 5 years of time you lose the 25 lakhs savings, 40 lakh MS fees, 2 years work experience, career hikes etc.
With all this, I would really say it is a good idea to stay back in India and concentrate on your career. You will naturally grow levels higher. If you are really interested in postgraduate, you can explore Work Integrated Learning Programs offered by many universities and corporates. If you are really interested in reaching the USA, sweat it out to compete with local pool, make it to top of your project, believe me, corporations always send people to the USA, you just have to find out the way and get what you want.
4. The USA affectionate person who always dreamt of settling down in the USA and wants to use MS as an entry gate.
and
5.The mediocre who thinks he can make it to the USA and have the capability to come out with flying colors after completing MS.
Short Answer: No, not just no, this category will soon be removed altogether because of the current anti-immigration sentiments.
Long Answer: You guys are the worst affected, I am sorry this route is going to be shut down soon. Let me tell you about a couple of my friends who knew they are below mediocre and just wanted to sneak through the initial gate to get settled in the USA. Today, one works as a data scientist and one works as a strategist for a medium sized US corporation with a modest salary. Let me explain what they did and why you cannot do the same.
Step 1: Take up GRE, don’t worry about the score, you are going to think any score is a good score to get a Tier B/ C school.
Step 1 A: The wow moment, University of ‘Welcome to the USA’ accepted your application and you will be admitted to the Fall MS program.
Step 2: Gather papers and apply for education loan and if you are lucky enough ride on your dad/ mom’s back for a sponsor.
Step 3: Do some shopping for INR 50,000 and book your tickets to the land of opportunities. Do not forget to find out that one senior student you always fought with studying in the university you applied for.
Step 4: Enjoy your stay, understand that part-time job is the most important aspect of MS, find out a parking lot job just to encounter some very nice human beings and some utterly wired homo sapiens.
Step 5: Count your dollars and survive the 2 years, once you realize that you are close to completion of your course, you realize that there is no concept of campus placements and begin applying for summer internships.
Please note, there are changes from step 6 you should be aware of.
A couple of years back:
Step 6: After 1000 applications and 100 phone interviews, you get into a medium-sized corporation.
Step 6A: If you still don’t find an internship, either reapply for a fresh course to stay on F1 visa and spend few more $ towards education or find out a ‘Welcome to the USA Desi Consulting – A CMMI level 19 company’ to just sponsor your H1B and stay on legal books.
Now:
Step 6: After 10000 applications and 100 phone interviews, you get into a small sized corporation. Most of them are going to hang up your call knowing that you will need a sponsor.
Step 6A: If you still don’t find an internship, either reapply for a fresh course to stay on F1 visa and spend few more $ towards education or fail in finding a ‘Welcome to the USA Desi Consulting – CMMI level 0.00019 company’. USICS is acting severely on such companies and the proof of client-employee-employer relationship is looked at seriously on H1B petitions. So, if you find such companies, please let me know, I have some of my friends who are close to their maximum legal stay period and want an H1B sponsor.
A couple of years back
Step 7: Find a contracting job finally and get into the immigration system to settle down in the USA.
Now:
Step 7: Realize that things changed and the only option is to regret the decision of doing MS which left you with a loan of INR 50 lakhs back home.
Just in case if you pass through step 7.
Step 8: Constantly live in a fear of losing the contract job, realize that Green Cards are eternal.
Step 9: With no secure job, your only full-time job is to just hang on. Nothing else is certain.
Step 10: Get used to technical H1B terms and realize that USICS is killing with ever-changing process changes, policy changes, RFEs, denials.
I personally have handful number of friends who are finding no jobs after their MS program and close to their illegal stay, who were working as contractors for close to a decade and had to leave USA just because USICS denied their H1B, who were promised by their employers for green cards but left in mid of nowhere. There is a flow chart summarizing all the categories and action points to be taken, the situation is good and bad, you will have to evaluate yourself before thinking about pursuing the so-called converted MS degree. The struggles undergone by non-MS H1B holders who were sent by their companies is another story worth a discussion. Good Luck!
# American Dream, #H1B-H1-B, #Anti-Immigration,#Buy American, Hire American,#Desi consultancies
