Unraveling the Education-Job Pipeline of Chinese International Graduates in the United States with Temporary Work Visas

• In Event: Transnational Teritary Education, Student Experiences, and Global Skills Formation

Proposal

Relevance
Global neoliberalism has restructured mobility through global labor markets (Ong, 2007), presenting international education as a path to upward mobility and personal liberation. However, being abroad also introduces new forms of oppression and resistance shaped by race and ethnicity, structures often prioritized in immigration studies (e.g. Chiswick & Miller, 2009). Moreover, a critical gap persists in current studies both on international education and immigration: the transition nexus (Robertson, 2013) between international graduates and immigrants remains undiscovered. How do international students navigate this path to become immigrants? What must they sacrifice, negotiate, and endure? These questions are missing.
Today, this path is increasingly obscure and precarious. Countries like Australia, Singapore, and the United States have implemented temporary work visa programs that delay or deny path to citizenship. These programs prioritize national interests by extracting flexible labor, but “flexible” often means uncertain, unprotected, and disposable (Zhou & Zhan, 2020). For international students, however, this has become the most common route to immigration. I thus argue that immigration status functions as an oppressive regime, layering onto existing structures of gender, race, and class.
This study addresses this gap by examining the education-to-employment pipeline of Chinese international graduates in the U.S. under temporary work visas, specifically the H-1B. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the H-1B program allows U.S. companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialized fields requiring advanced education (USCIS, 2022). However, graduates must undergo a lottery with slim odds of selection. Moreover, strict employment maintenance standards impose emotional anxiety and life fluctuations. This study investigates how students navigate this immigration regime in pursuit of global mobility, centering the intersection of gender, education, career, and legal status. It not only shows how neoliberal governance practices narrow highly skilled labor into economic subjects but also reveals the nuances of what young people deem “worthy” in their pursuit of global migration shaped by opportunistic yet exploitative immigration regimes.
Theoretical lens
Drawing on Foucault (1999, as cited in Taylor, 2014)’s concept of biopower, where life is managed through state and institutional mechanisms, it discusses how U.S. immigration policy governs foreign-born skilled workers through macro-level visa regulations and a meso-level governance in employer sponsorship. The participants’ lived experiences, combined with monthly observations of H-1B-related posts on two Chinese social media platforms and H-1B regulations from the USCIS website, collectively tell the story of the vibrant reality of the U.S. immigration policy regime. Governing at both macro and meso levels, this regime exercises the top-down control over the entire life spectrum of foreign-born skilled workers, shaping their choices and trajectories related to education, career, mobility, and overall well-being.
Methodology
I conducted qualitative research with 40 Chinese international graduates who are working in the U.S. with H-1B visas across five major U.S. cities/areas: New York City, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Silicon Valley. The participants included 23 women and 17 men, with 27 in STEM and 13 in non-STEM fields. I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews, each lasting 1-2 hours, to explore their experiences of visa application, career, relationship, race and ethnicity, gender and future planning. I also analyzed trendy posts of H-1B visa holders on two Chinese social media platforms and relevant policy documents from the USCIS website.
Findings:
Theme 1: Living a Broken Global Promise: Suffocated Life Opportunities under an Ephemeral Presence
This theme conceptualizes how the H-1B regime governs lives through constraints of space, time, and opportunity, stripping international graduates of independence and mobility over the life course. A central theme is the “grinding self,” reflecting the continual self-sacrifice required of non-STEM graduates who forgo career advancement in exchange for visa sponsorship, due to STEM/non-STEM–driven inequalities of visa sponsorship embedded in H-1B policy bias. These participants are compelled into submissive roles, undermining the educational and professional pride the global neoliberalism once promised.
Theme 2: Calculating Rationality within a Perplexing Meritocracy: Disciplined Models and Enterprising Maneuvers
The chapter is divided into two sections. The first section elaborates how the visa regime, functioning as an inserted mental framework that governs from a distance, disciplines participants to become model workers whose aspirations, identities, and behaviors align with the state’s interests. These individuals exhibit a deep commitment to grit, compliance, and overperformance. The second section reveals the other side of this equation: individuals’ tactical improvisation, often defiant, flexible, or operating in legal grey zones, as they navigate systemic precarity.
Theme 3: A Gendered Self-Formation Process: Pursuing Life Balance in Global Migration
The final theme reveals how future-making under migration regimes is profoundly gendered. Decisions are entwined with questions of being and striving, including gender independence, labor liberation, and life fulfillment. These self-forming acts resist linear narratives of success in Chinese discourses, offering alternative imaginaries grounded in balance, worthy living, and collective well-being.
Contribution
This research advances critical understandings of how global education is governed at a distance through immigration regimes that reshape the value of majors, degrees, and life opportunities. By centering Chinese international graduates navigating the U.S. H-1B visa system, it reveals how global education is not only a site of aspiration but also a deeply politicized terrain, where mobility is regulated by state-sanctioned policies that stratify access to work, belonging, and autonomy.
In dialogue with the CIES 2026 theme, Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World, this study redefines peace beyond the absence of conflict to encompass the pursuit of stability, dignity, and equitable opportunity. It calls for urgent attention to how such peace might be cultivated within global migration, as migration remains a key driver of international education. Further, it contributes to Asian American scholarship by centering the often-overlooked pre-migration period—a transitional stage where gender, legality, education, and labor intersect—thereby bridging the divided academic literatures on international students and immigration.

Author

• Yuejia Wang, University at Buffalo