Indian students in U.S. in catch-22 situation

[sajiv]

Indian students in U.S. in catch-22 situation

HYDERABAD: With barely three months left for the expiry of Optional Practical Training (OPT) period having completed M.S. programme in America, Anitha is desperately mailing and calling up her friends.

"Please, find a job for me in any part of America. Otherwise, I will be in a financial mess and forced to fly back to India as a pauper," she has been telling them. It is not just the eluding job she is afraid of but the mounting debt of the educational loan she had secured to pursue the post graduate programme that is giving her sleepless nights.

Anitha's is not a lone case. Scores of graduates from Andhra Pradesh, especially from engineering background, who flew to America to pursue higher studies and were planning to settle there are in doldrums with recession shattering their dollar dreams.

While some are returning to India after exhausting all options, others like Anitha are caught in a situation like the devil and deep blue sea.

Hailing from a lower middle-class family of Karimnagar district, she graduated from Osmania University College of Engineering and went to America to pursue M.S. programme.

The bank loan of Rs. 5 lakh apart, she had to spend an equal amount in the past two years to finish the course. More than half of the engineering graduates, who go to America for higher studies, switch over to software jobs by learning select courses. "As the software industry is badly hit, even those already working for several years are losing jobs. Naturally, the newcomers are the worst affected," P. Sharath, who is in America for past five years, said. After completion of the course, the foreign students should secure a job during the OPT period - which can last from one year to 29 months - to get their visa period extended. During this time, they apply for H-1 visa and get visas renewed. But continuing to live in America without a job means borrowing money from home and landing in a debt trap.