US unveils changes to attract foreign science, tech students

The Biden administration on Friday announced policy changes to attract international students specializing in science, technology, engineering and math — part of the broader effort to make the U.S. economy more competitive.

The State Department will let eligible visiting students in those fields, known as STEM, complete up to 36 months of academic training, according to a notice in the Federal Register. There will also be an initiative to connect these students with U.S. businesses.

Homeland Security will add 22 new fields of study — including cloud computing, data visualization and data science — to a program that allows international graduates from U.S. universities to spend up to three additional years training with domestic employers. The program generated about 58,000 applications in fiscal 2020.

The programs are designed to ensure that the U.S. is a magnet for talent from around the world, attracting scientists and researchers whose breakthroughs will enable the economy to grow. Government data shows that international students are increasingly the lifeblood of academic research.

It is the latest example of the Biden administration using presidential powers, as Donald Trump did, to retool the immigration system in the face of decades of congressional inaction. The Migration Policy Institute tallied nearly 300 changes to the system during Biden's first year in office, many of them to undo Trump's actions to restrict immigration.

The Trump administration's agenda frequently included plans to reduce or eliminate visas that allow college graduates, largely in STEM fields, up to three years to chart a career path in the United States. It never announced a change, though, which would have added to other measures that limited legal immigration.

The government's National Science Board reported this...