10 Best U.S. Universities for Job Prospects for International Students
In the top 10 leaders in salaries and green card eligibility for international students, San Jose State University in California, central Silicon Valley, is ranked No. 1. The rankings were published by F1 Hire, a U.S. employment data company for international talent, three days ago. The four criteria evaluated include tuition fees, average salary, number of applicants, and the rate of obtaining a permanent work permit (PERM – a mandatory factor for U.S. businesses to sponsor foreign workers to work and apply for green cards).
From there, F1 Hire calculates the rate of being granted a green card (permanent resident card) and the rate of return of international students.
Behind San Jose State University is Carnegie Mellon (CMU), a private school in Pennsylvania. Stanford and Princeton Universities in 3rd and 4th place.
Central Michigan University is a special case – ranked fifth, although not in the top 200 best universities in the US by the prestigious US News rankings. If you look at the percentage of graduates who receive green cards, Central Michigan ranks second in the top 10.
California, where the Sillicon Valley is located, is the state with the most ranked schools. In the top 25, the state has three public schools, along with two campuses in the University of California (UC) system and three private universities.
Specific ratings are as follows:
| F1 Hire Rankings | Field | Score (100) | Tuition fees for international students per year |
| 1 | San Jose State University | 100 | 26.815 USD |
| 2 | Carnegie Mellon University | 94.7 | 64.600 USD |
| 3 | Stanford University | 87.9 | 65.910 USD |
| 4 | Princeton University | 85.3 | 62.400 USD |
| 5 | Central Michigan University | 81.5 | 21.600 USD |
| 6 | California State University, Sacramento | 80.6 | 20.618 USD |
| 7 | Georgia Institute of Technology | 79.9 | 34.485 USD |
| 8 | Southern California University | 79.3 | 70.000 USD |
| 9 | Harvard University | 76.5 | 56.550 USD |
| 10 | Northern Illinois University | 73.5 | 13.000 USD |
F1 Hire rankings debut in 2023. Schools that are assessed must have more than 500 international students.
Andrew Chen, the chief executive, said the table is only based on employment results, using data from the U.S. Immigration and Labor Department. Hire F1 does not take into account reputation, scientific research results – which have a high weight in world university rankings.
“It is obvious that some prestigious universities always have good results in all aspects. However, many other expensive options do not bring satisfactory career results,” Chen said.
In fact, in the list of F1 Hire, there are many less well-known schools, not belonging to the Association of American Universities (AAU), and the student input (SAT scores, GPA) is not too high.
For example, at Northern Illinois University, the average academic grade point average (GPA) for freshmen is 3.4/4. Or at Central Michigan University, the entrance SAT GPA is only 960-1210/1600, GPA 3.5. The two universities are ranked 273rd and 259th in the public university rankings by US News. The U.S. is the world’s number one study abroad destination with more than one million international students, from more than 200 countries and territories. The number of Vietnamese international students is 21,900, ranking 5th.
US News data shows that the cost of college, including tuition and living expenses in the US in the 2024-2025 academic year is about 11,000-43,000 USD (280-1.1 billion VND) on average.