Colleges’ Use of a Foreign-Worker Program Draws Mixed Reviews

U. of Colorado at Boulder

Even as President Trump called this week for toughening the regulation of H-1B visas, American colleges and universities have been expanding their use of the program for highly skilled foreigners in order to sponsor international entrepreneurs and start-up founders for temporary work permits.

Critics of those efforts, which have sprung up at a handful of institutions across the country, call them an “abuse” of higher education’s exemption from otherwise-stringent quotas on the popular work program.

But supporters say the efforts are a critical means of attracting and retaining talented innovators who have the potential to contribute to the American economy. Very often, those foreign-born entrepreneurs are graduates of American colleges, says William Brah, who runs the Global Entrepreneur in Residence program, as such initiatives are commonly known, at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. “We educate them, we inspire them to create the next Google or Facebook,” he says, “and then we send them back to their own country to compete with us.”

Mr. Brah’s three-year-old program, part of a statewide plan devised by then-Gov. Deval Patrick to spur economic growth, is the longest-standing. But others have since been created at San Jose State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Alaska at Anchorage, and seven City University of New York campuses. Last month Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago announced five colleges in his region would adopt the model.

While the specifics differ, the basic idea is the same: In exchange for a college-sponsored visa, the entrepreneur works part time on the campus, mentoring students, advising entrepreneurship clubs, or conducting research with faculty members, among other activities. The rest of the time is devoted to getting the start-up company off the ground.

The programs are a response to what many people in both business and education see as flaws in the current visa system. The number of H-1B visas granted through an annual lottery has been limited to 85,000 for a dozen years, and with comprehensive immigration reform bottled up in Washington, there seems to be little likelihood that the cap will be raised any time soon. Still, demand for the visas far outpaces supply. When the federal government opened the 2017 lottery this month, applications reached the cap in just four days.

High-tech firms say they are unable to fill jobs yet are cut off from a critical source of highly skilled workers, many of whom were educated at American colleges and universities. International students account for a large share of the enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs in the United States, and last year they earned half of the doctoral degrees awarded in those disciplines.

For foreign-born entrepreneurs, there’s an additional complication. Because the U.S. system is based on employer sponsors, there’s no clear route for start-up founders to obtain work visas on their own.

Enter colleges. Congress exempted higher-education institutions from the H-1B cap in 2000, understanding that colleges must be able to hire the most talented scholars and researchers, no matter their country of birth, says William A. Stock, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The timing of the visa lottery also puts colleges at a disadvantage, says Mr. Stock, a founding partner at Klasko Immigration Law Partners, in Philadelphia. Even two decades ago, the cap was typically reached in the spring, just as the academic hiring cycle picked up, and new visas were not available until October, often months after the academic year began.

Today, higher education ranks third behind technology-related occupations as the largest industry sponsor of H-1B visa recipients. Close to 16,000 visas were awarded to college employees in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with most going to professors, researchers, and postdocs. The visas are typically valid for three years, with the possibility of renewal.

Getting ‘Creative’

Detractors of Global Entrepreneur in Residence programs complain that they are diverging from the original intent of the H-1B exemption, which was to support colleges’ core missions of research and teaching.

In recent years, “universities have started to get creative” in their use of H-1Bs, says John M. Miano, a lawyer who has filed legal challenges to a program that allows international students to stay and work in the United States after graduation. “It’s H-1B abuse. This isn’t what the visa was intended for.”

Mr. Miano, who is affiliated with the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports restrictions on immigration, lumps the programs in with several instances in which colleges may have misused the exemption. The University of California at San Francisco, for instance, has been criticized for laying off several dozen information-technology staff members and replacing them with lower-paid holders of H-1B visas. Federal officials are investigating Wright State University, in Ohio, for possibly using its exemption to hire foreign workers for local companies, including several connected to university trustees.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has also slammed the Global Entrepreneur in Residence programs, including them in a letter last March to the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that complained about companies’ and colleges’ “hacking” the visa system through “novel and seemingly unlawful interpretations” of the H-1B statute.

An examination of H-1B data, however, shows little evidence that colleges have been rapidly expanding their use of the exemption to circumvent the visa system. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security awarded 9,000 fewer H-1Bs to college employees in 2015 than a decade earlier.

Senator Grassley, whose office did not respond to requests for comment, did not include any provisions targeting Global Entrepreneur in Residence programs or changing higher education’s H-1B exemption when he introduced legislation this year to reform the visa program.

Trump’s Call to Tighten

While President Trump has called for tightening the H-1B program, it’s far from clear what actions his administration might propose. In fact, Mr. Trump has said that one of his goals is to ensure that visas go to the most highly skilled applicants, who have the most to offer the American economy. And that, say backers of the global entrepreneur programs, is exactly their objective.

Philip J. Weiser, who heads up the University of Colorado’s program, characterizes the programs as a win for everyone. The entrepreneurs get visas to work in the United States, while the region could benefit if companies are spun off locally. Of equal importance, the university, which has been emphasizing entrepreneurship education, gains on-campus mentors with real-world experience.

A focus on entrepreneurship education also made such a program a good fit for business-oriented Babson College, in Massachusetts, the first private institution to adopt the model. So far, Babson’s one entrepreneur in residence has spoken on panels, led workshops, and been a resource to students working in the college’s student-business accelerator.

But Debi Kleiman, who leads Babson’s program, says recruiting participants has been slower than anticipated because of its stringent requirements. Applicants need to demonstrate that they have more than just a good idea, through factors like having seed funding, an established board of directors, or agreements with prospective customers. Like programs elsewhere, the college is looking for start-ups that are already somewhat established and so have a good chance of succeeding. “We want people who create jobs, not take them,” says Mr. Brah, of UMass-Boston.

Over its three years, the UMass-Boston program has accepted 30 entrepreneurs who have gone on to create 25 companies, hire 375 employees, and raise $240.6 million in venture capital. In selecting participants, the university gives an edge to applicants who have attended college in Massachusetts or the United States.

Srinath Vaddepally was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University when he and fellow students developed RistCall, a wearable device, akin to a smartwatch, that lets patients communicate with their nurses and allows health-care providers to monitor patients’ vital signs. Mr. Vaddepally got the idea for the device, which replaces the traditional nurse’s call button, after he suffered a fall while in the hospital and couldn’t easily summon help.

Mr. Vaddepally already has contracts with several hospitals and nursing homes in Pennsylvania, but without UMass-Boston’s Global Entrepreneur in Residence program, recommended to him by an adviser at Carnegie Mellon, he would have had to return home to India when his student visa ran out.

Fanyu Lin, who earned a degree in architectural design at Columbia University, faced a similar can-I-stay-or-will-I-have-to-go moment — in her case, back to China — before being accepted into the UMass-Boston program last summer. Her company, Fluxus, designs high-quality prefabricated buildings that can be assembled with just a few parts. She’s drawn interest in her prototypes from the United Nations for post-disaster shelters, as well as from the city of Boston, which is looking for low-cost student housing.

The global entrepreneur program has been more than a way to remain in the country, Ms. Lin says. A student intern she hired helped Fluxus refine its business model. The university also connected her with a local business executive who has shifted from being an outside mentor to the company’s chief business adviser.

The program, she says, has been a “pathway to pursuing my dreams” — ones that she hopes will one day contribute to the American economy.

Dan Bauman contributed to this article.

Karin Fischer writes about international education, colleges and the economy, and other issues. She’s on Twitter @karinfischer, and her email address is karin.fischer@chronicle.com.

Correction (4/26/2017, 11:30 a.m.): The photo caption for this article originally misspelled Mr. Denaes’s first name. It is Julien, not Julian.