The Skills and Economic Outcomes of Immigrant and U.S.-Born College Graduates

Approximately two million college-educated immigrants were unemployed in 2019 or worked in jobs that only require a high school degree. In a fact sheet from the Migration Policy Institute entitled The Skills and Economic Outcomes of Immigrant and U.S.-Born College Graduates, the authors argue that these workers have the skills and credentials that could help meet the needs of a struggling U.S. labor market. Drawing upon data from a survey conducted by the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, the authors found that fifty-one percent of immigrant graduates have degrees in the high-demand STEM and health fields. Moreover, employed immigrant graduates reported having higher monthly earnings than U.S.-born workers, likely because more of them majored in STEM fields and earned advanced degrees. While the rate of skill underutilization is the same for both immigrants and U.S. born- graduates, immigrants with low literacy, numeracy and digital levels were four times more likely than those with high scores to see their skills underutilized (45% vs 11%). The authors suggest that efforts to solve the immigrant “brain waste” problem by improving foundational skills could also benefit the U.S.-born population. (The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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