Taking the United States, a big country studying abroad, as an example, we compare it from the dimensions of tuition, major choice, further education and employment. You can see it at a glance!
tuition
The annual cost of an international student studying in the United States is about 40 thousand dollars, and the four-year undergraduate fee is about 200 thousand dollars. For American green card holders who are regarded as local students, if they attend public universities in the state, the annual tuition fee is about 65,438 US dollars+0-20,000 US dollars, totaling 40,000-80,000 US dollars.
In other words, only in the undergraduate stage, the tuition fees of international students will be 2-5 times that of American green card students.
Specifically, compared with the tuition fees of UCLA students in the state and international students, domestic students only need $34,667, while international students need $63,669, which is obviously different.
go to school
The famous American school headed by Ivy League has an unwritten international student quota. Generally speaking, these prestigious schools will give about 10% of the enrollment quota in that year to international students; And 90% of the resources are reserved for green card holders and American citizens.
Take Harvard University as an example. Of the more than 30,000 students, only 4% are from China. In this case, even if the children get excellent grades and have no American green card, it is difficult to get valuable places in top universities.
However, if you get a green card before applying for the American book, children will not have to squeeze into the international student track with outstanding students from all over the world and directly enter the 90% quota pool, and the chances of being admitted to a prestigious school will be greatly improved.
Professional choice
American universities, especially top universities, not only give priority to children with green card status in the United States to receive quality education, but also give them more professional choices. Some advantageous disciplines and top majors of famous American universities are not open to international students, such as medicine, biology, law, aerospace and other majors, but green card students are not restricted.
Continue to do business
It is almost as difficult for China students to stay in the United States after graduation, but it is much easier for green card holders.
Generally speaking, international students have 1 year or 3 years of OPT job opportunities after graduation (OPT for liberal arts/business/art majors is usually 1 year, and OPT for STEM majors is 3 years). In this 1-3 year, there is only a 60-day window, and the rest must be in-service status. It is not easy to find a job within 60 days of graduation, nor is it easy to keep a job.
Moreover, international students can only engage in professional counterparts, and it is inevitable that they will miss many opportunities.
However, it is the lottery visa: H- 1B work visa that finally decides whether the international students will stay or not. Lotto is called because its distribution is purely "luck". No matter how high the salary is, no matter how good the education is, no matter how good the company is, you must take part in blind drawing.
According to the data of previous years, the winning rate of China students' H- 1B is below 15%, which is far lower than that of Indian students' 70%.
More importantly, holding an H- 1B visa cannot be automatically converted into a green card. It is always a visa, and it is highly dependent on the qualifications and wishes of the employer, which itself has great variables.
Most importantly, the status of international students is difficult to be recognized by large enterprises.
Take KPMG, the four major accounting firms, as an example, because the visa for international students is unstable and the turnover rate is too high, which has caused a lot of uncontrollable costs to the company, so we began to reduce the recruitment of international students from 20 18. Other companies will directly ask "Do you have a green card" in the first round of interviews. If the answer is "No", the interview will end directly.
On the other hand, green card holders don't have to worry about the expiration of student visas and being forced to leave the United States, and they don't have to worry about the layers of screening decisions made by immigration authorities.