The H-1B visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act allows US employers to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations. If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for and be granted a change of status, find another employer or leave the United States. Now keeping all this in mind which university sends more Indians to the US via H-1B visa. The most obvious answer might seem to be the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) or the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS). Guess what none of it is the right answer.
Last year, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services issued 85,000 H-1B visas. Out of these over 20,000 went to Indians, according to a report by Quartz quoting the office of foreign labour certification.
Chennai’s Anna Univerisity emerged as the winner with 850 of its alumni securing the H-1B while Hyderabad’s Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University was second with 747. BITS and IITs had just a little over 60 each.
However, the numbers do not tell why is it that Anna Univerisity has higher acceptance rate that of IITs and IIMs. For instance, the IITs offer fewer than 12,000 seats per year, while Anna University has approximately 200,000.
Since the H-1Bs are allotted via lottery, having a larger base means universities with more students bag more visas, too.
Interestingly, the numbers are not much different at the master’s level either. In fiscal 2017, JNTU and Anna University bagged the top two spots while the IITs barely made it to the top 25 list in this category.
Apart from this many US universities are also featured on the list at the master’s level. It is not at all shocking knowing that Indians make up the second-largest international student population in the States and a little over 50 percent of all post-graduate foreign students are from India.