Sakshi Patel has long dreamed of building a career in the United States after earning her master's degree in financial management from Boston University in May 2025. Now 23 and working as a business analyst at a nonprofit under the optional practical training program, she has roughly two months left on her work authorization before she may need to return to her native India if no suitable position materializes.
The challenges facing Patel and thousands of other international graduates come amid a softening entry-level job market and shifting immigration rules. Job postings on Handshake fell 2 percent from July 2025 to March 2026 compared with the prior year and 12 percent from 2019-2020 levels, while the unemployment rate for recent college graduates aged 22 to 27 reached 5.6 percent in March 2026, according to New York Fed data.
Erica Ford, an international career development coach at Cornell University who supports about 300 international students annually, noted that even students in STEM fields are now often content with a single job offer. "Some of the most common concerns are: Are employers still hiring international students right now? Am I being screened out because of my temporary work authorization or because I said that I would need sponsorship in the future?" Ford said.
Data from Handshake shows the share of full-time job postings offering visa sponsorship dropped from 10.9 percent in 2023 to 2.6 percent in 2026, with the steepest declines in the tech sector. Approximately 84,000 international students are expected to earn bachelor's degrees from U.S. universities in 2026, while hundreds of thousands more pursue master's and doctoral degrees, according to analyses of National Center for Education Statistics and Open Doors data.
David Li, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, plans to begin searching for postdoctoral and academic positions in September but is also weighing opportunities in Europe, his native China, and other parts of Asia. "Before, there was this golden standard of coming to the U.S., staying in the U.S., [and] realizing your American dream," Li said. "Now, this dream is collapsing."
The U.S. issued 97,000 fewer F-1 visas for the 2025-26 academic year than the previous year, a 36 percent decline, according to an analysis by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Application processing for some immigration benefits, including OPT, has been paused for students from countries covered by the Trump administration's travel ban, leaving many F-1 visa holders unable to begin work after graduation, Inside Higher Ed reported.
"The research literature provides strong and consistent evidence that high-skill immigration drives U.S. productivity and economic growth, with the largest effects from STEM-trained immigrants ... [arising from their] effects on new business formation, scientific discovery, and the patenting of new economic ideas."
Xinran Xu, 24, who earned her master's degree from the University of Michigan in 2025 and now works as a statistician at a medical device company outside Minneapolis, is awaiting a decision on her H-1B visa petition. Her company is covering fees and supporting the application through an immigration attorney. The Trump administration's September announcement of a $100,000 fee for new H-1B recipients and a March Department of Labor proposal to raise minimum salary requirements by 21 to 33 percent have added uncertainty for younger workers.
Former international students have founded one-quarter of U.S. startups valued at $1 billion or more, according to a 2022 NAFSA analysis. Researchers estimate that a one-third reduction in international STEM graduates could result in annual GDP losses of $240 billion to $481 billion over the next decade, per an October 2025 working paper from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Ford encourages students to attend conferences, message hiring managers directly, and build personal connections rather than relying solely on online applications. "In a market in the condition that we're in right now, taking that extra step to build relationships and make personal connections makes a huge difference," she said.
Patel continues networking aggressively while maintaining optimism about remaining in the U.S. "I came with that dream to the United States, and I still hope to live that dream," she told CNBC Make It. If her OPT expires without a qualifying role, she says she will seek work in India but will keep trying to return. "I just want to use that time to make a fair effort so that I don't have any kind of regrets."
Xu anticipates ongoing immigration hurdles. "I'm just expecting a bumpy road throughout the next five years," she said. Many peers are now considering alternatives such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Australia, and countries across Europe and Southeast Asia, according to Ford and Li.