Nearly 100,000 international students worked in Michigan after their graduation under the Optional Practical Training, or OPT, portion of their student visas from 2013–2022 — including over 50,000 engineering jobs, according to a new report from Global Detroit.
The vast majority of these workers — 88% — are in STEM fields, and around the same percentage had either master’s or doctoral degrees in their field.
All F-1 student visa holders are eligible for one year of the training, which does not require employers to pay any visa costs or attorney fees, nor do employers have to manage the visas themselves. For STEM degrees, that can be extended to three years of work under OPT.
“This talent pipeline is critical to our economic future,” he wrote to the Michigan Advance. “It’s the talent we need to continue to be the global leader of automotive design and manufacturing and for the emerging industries of the future. It’s critical for our innovation economy and startups.”
Tobocman, a former Michigan state representative in southwest Detroit, added that Michigan could be “easily increasing the flow of this talent pipeline” if employers understood the benefits of OPT, as well as combating misconceptions about these students, such as the idea that many might not speak English fluently.
But the OPT portion of student visas has been targeted by the Trump administration, which has put forward a rule that would end or severely restrict the program. The administration also paused all student visa interviews in spring 2025, which Inside Higher Ed reported led to a sharp decline in student visas — the number of student visas issued in summer 2025 declined by more than 100,000 from the previous summer, and F-1 visas declined the most.
Michigan retained a higher percentage of its engineering students over the last 15 years than any other state, except California and Washington, according to a press release from Global Detroit regarding the report. Tobocman also emphasized that Michigan has the first and largest international student retention program in the U.S.
About two-thirds of Michigan’s OPT workers are in the Detroit metro area, the most in the state. Ann Arbor had the second-most, over 20,000, but only around 30% of those workers graduated from the University of Michigan, which the report says indicates “the region imports plenty of OPT workers for both employment at the university and in the region’s strong tech, research and biotechnology sectors.”
International students add $1.4 billion to the Michigan economy every year in spending, the report states, and with over 40,000 students, ranks Michigan 8th in the number of international students nationally.
“International students raise the level and quality of research, scholarship, and innovation at Michigan’s public universities,” said Daniel Hurley, Chief Executive Officer at the Michigan Association of State Universities, in a press release for the report. “They diversify the student experience and play a critical role in preparing Michigan students for the global economy. Additionally, through their spending, international students contribute to the economic vitality of local businesses and generate much-needed tuition revenue for our state’s public institutions.”
Data in the report was obtained by Global Detroit and other partners through Freedom of Information Act requests, and prior to that release, such a detailed analysis of the impacts of OPT workers had not been possible, the press release added.
