Most college students try to find part-time jobs to help with their expenses and tuition fees; International students, on the other hand, don’t have as many possibilities to do so. According to SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System,) students who study in the United States holding an F-1 visa are not allowed to work anywhere off campus. They are only allowed to work on campus for up to 20 hours a week when school is in session and up to 40 hours a week during the university’s holiday periods.
The issue about whether international students should be allowed to work off campus or not is very controversial. After the incident of 9/11, it became very hard for international students to earn F, J and M visas. The F-1 visa is a non-immigrant, full-time, student visa that allows foreigners to pursue education in the United States. “J” visa is The Exchange Visitor non-immigrant visa category that is granted to students participating in work or study exchange programs. “M” visa is reserved for nonimmigrants wishing to pursue nonacademic or vocational studies. There were false claims that some or all of the 9/11 hijackers entered the United States by student visas. However, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, only one of the 19 hijackers affiliated with 9/11 was on a student visa. A report by the Government Accountability Offices showed serious concerns about the need to track foreigners who overstay their visas.
Consequently, SEVIS came up with these strict rules and regulations to monitor international students and scholars on F, J and M visa statuses and see their up-to-date information, academic activities and their accompanying family members. International students, who are generally on F-1 visa status, have to pay a SEVIS fee of $200 to issue their visa. These fees are used for different purposes, one of them is to support the current version of SEVIS and the other is to develop and deploy the next generation of SEVIS. Students who violate these regulations or fail to maintain status either leave the United States or apply for reinstatement. It is understandable to assign such rules for security reasons, since F-1 visas used to be easy to earn and may have been misused. Anyone can apply to a university and use the acceptance letter to get into the US for reasons other than studying. But what does this mean for International students?
Kidus Dawrt, a freshman from Ethiopia, expressed his opinion on the restrictions of job opportunities for International students, “I think that is very unjust and unfair how international students are not allowed to work off-campus. We are actually the ones with the lowest amount of financial resources and it is so frustrating that we can’t support ourselves.”
As much as we have to respect these rules and regulations and understand their importance, we have to admit they cause much struggle for international students, including myself, who are trying to find a part-time job. Normally, it is already hard for a college student to find a part-time job that pays well and doesn’t interfere with their busy schedules and academic performance, let alone finding a job on campus. Job opportunities that are available on campus are very limited. Especially for international students, who are restricted to opportunities that are considered Curricular Practical Training (CPT.) According to the university’s official website, “Curricular Practical training is an employment option available to F-1 students in which work experience is considered to be an integral part of the curriculum or academic program.” As an international student, to be eligible for CPT you have to receive a job offer that is related to your major field of study and is an integral part of your degree program.
Kebron Bizuneh, an senior from Ethiopia, talks about how hard it is to find jobs on campus: “As an international student, it’s always difficult to find a job that pays you. Firstly, we international students are not allowed to work off campus and that tightens our chances. Secondly, most famous jobs are not student employment but work study which are offered for American students but not international. On top of that, some students have more than one job. So this brings our chances to get a job from limited to none. All this added makes it difficult to any international student to find work on campus.”
It is even harder and more competitive here in the University of Tampa as it is known for having a great number of international students from over 100 different countries. This is ironic in the way that international students have to pay higher tuition fees and most of them don’t get the chance to work to cover part of these expenses.
As much I support the SEVIS rules and follow them as a student on F-1 visa, I believe that there should be some solution that gives International students better job opportunities while maintaining all other SEVIS rules that track and monitor students with F-1 visas. For example, some on-campus jobs can be solely available to International students instead of being restricted to curricular practical training. These can include jobs that are available in different campus departments as the office of admissions and the office of campus recreation.
It’s unfair that we international students don’t have enough job opportunities on campus although we really need them. Since we can’t change the law that restricts us from working off campus, we should at least try to increase the job opportunities on campus.
Rawan Elzayat can be reached at rawan.elzayat@spartans.ut.edu