First Thought
Insights drawn weekly from Karin Fischer’s global-education newsletter, latitude(s). Subscribe here.
Colleges are an increasingly critical channel for talented immigrants to the United States, a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows.
The authors, researchers at Harvard and Yale, find that one in five entrepreneurs who start venture-backed companies in the U.S. are immigrants — and of that group, more than three-quarters came to America for college.
Over the past decade — the study looks at trends dating back to 1990 — a greater proportion of founders have come to the U.S. not just for graduate education but to earn undergraduate degrees. Of the study’s sample, 42 percent of immigrant founders came for undergraduate study and 37 percent for graduate programs. Just 22 percent of immigrant entrepreneurs came to the U.S. for work rather than education, the researchers found.
The new research underscores American colleges’ key role as a gateway for global talent, attracting and educating top students.
Read more from Karin in this week’s latitude(s).