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In the 1970s, my dad moved from India to the United States to pursue graduate school, and then went on to contribute to American companies for decades. After my parents married in the 1980s and my mom moved to the U.S., she pursued her college education here, also contributing to American firms for decades. Both also volunteered their time in public elementary and high schools for many years, contributing, among many things, free tutoring and launching world language programs. Neither went back to work in India nor for Indian companies.
I share this, even though it’s obvious to many Americans, but because it’s clearly not to all: Many international students contribute greatly to not just the innovation in the U.S. but also our local communities.
Over the last few weeks, it’s been somewhat startling to think I likely would not exist or be living here today if it weren’t for the United States’ unmatched ability to attract the world’s brightest to our unparalleled universities.
But the Trump administration is making serious moves to end decades of that gold standard, attacking the most recognizable symbol of American higher education — Harvard — and cracking down on student visas.
It’s baffling when you consider even very surface-level measures of how international talent yields economic benefit.
Many of the nation’s most value-creating companies are started by immigrants or their children
Shown in the table below, the American Immigration Council cites the latest companies founded by immigrants or their children that they added to their “New American Fortune 500” list in 2024. Take a look at how many jobs they created, too.
American Immigration Council’s New American Fortune 500 Companies List in 2024 Consider this: 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 2024 were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Even when they’re just in school, international students contribute billions to the U.S. economy
As The Washington Post reports, the organization NAFSA: Association of International Educators found that if you add up tuition, fees, accommodations, transportation, and incidental expenses…
NAFSA estimates that international students contributed nearly $44 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 school year.
A University of California, Davis study paired information about international students graduating from U.S. master’s programs between 1999 and 2020 with data on the startups they founded.
The study found that an increase of 150 international students in a graduating cohort led to one additional startup within five years, a rate eight to nine times higher than for an equivalent number of U.S.-born students. About a third of that increase in startups was generated by international students’ entrepreneurialism spilling over to their U.S.-born peers who also founded and co-founded firms.
It’s not just economics
It would involve a Ph.D. dissertation to go through the sheer scale of cultural benefits to this land of immigrants.
So just take the selection of one basic metric: Can you imagine a U.S. without food that has flavor?
That sounds bland.
This article was first published in Red, White and Brown