- posted: Jan. 01, 2022
On January 21, 2022, the Biden Administration made some positive impact to the immigration landscape by adding 22 qualifying fields of study to the STEM Designated Degree Program List. STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The STEM OPT program permits F-1 students earning bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degrees in certain STEM fields to remain in the United States for up to 36 months to work in their field of study. Adding 22 fields of study will ensure this benefit to be conferred upon on students from 22 additional fields that will further help the U.S. economy earn benefits from students earning degrees in the United States in competitive STEM fields. The 22 new fields added to the list for STEM OPT are Bioenergy, Forestry, General, Forest Resources Production and Management, Human-Centered Technology Design, Cloud Computing, Anthrozoology, Climate Science, Earth Systems Science, Economics and Computer Science, Environmental Geosciences, Geobiology, Geography and Environmental Studies, Mathematical Economics, Mathematics and Atmospheric/Oceanic Science, Data Science, General, Data Analytics, General, Business Analytics, Data Visualization, Financial Analytics, Data Analytics, Other, Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Social Sciences, Research Methodology and Quantitative Methods. This will definitely help US employers to retain talented students in their workforce.
Vijay Bhagwati, Esq.
Founder and Managing Partner
