Why Social Media Posts on Struggles of Indian Students in the US are Helpful
Social media posts of no jobs and layoffs reveal the risks of huge debt taken on by Indians to study in the US
October 6, 2025
Last week, Ananya Joshi posted on Instagram images of her leaving the United States. This was following her being laid off from a job, while on a student’s practical training (OPT) visa, not finding another job and having to leave the US within sixty days of her job loss. Her earning a Master’s in biotechnology last year from Northwestern, a major US university, effectively had no job value in America. Her post, which uses the handle AnanyaStruggles, has gotten nearly 21,000 likes and has been widely covered by the media in India.
“Hi, Me and my fiancé were in the same boat,” of not finding a job after graduating from a US university, posted another student from India on Instagram, in response to Joshi’s post. Such social media posts, by Joshi and other students and professionals from India, provide first-hand evidence of the low prospects of finding jobs in America faced by the vast majority of students from India. This is even though they are eligible to work on temporary practical training and H-1B professional work visas.
Hopefully, the posts are convincing at least some students in India to avoid taking on huge debt to pursue advanced degrees in the US. Hundreds of consultants on foreign college admissions in India as well as online promoters of US universities push the strategy that, while a student may have failed to get into a good Indian university, they are very likely to be admitted by an American university. The sales pitch is that an American degree, irrespective of the quality, is a big boost for career prospects. The consultants rarely, if ever, point out that most students from India may not find a job in the US upon graduation.
Currently there are a total of 422,000 students from India at US universities. The vast majority of them pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) Master’s degrees, at mid or low-quality universities. With degrees from such universities, they had very low prospects of finding a job in the US - one in three chance on a practical training visa and one in 15 chance of being hired on one of the 85,000 H-1B professional work visas issued each year. In fact, as Joshi’s example illustrates, such low chances were for an Indian with an advanced STEM degree.
Since last month, employers have to pay a $100,000 fee to hire a foreigner on the H-1B visa. Since few employers will pay the fee, the chances of a student from India being hired on the visa, even one with a STEM Master’s from an Ivy League university like Columbia or Brown, has been further reduced to near zero. So, most students from India, who take on major education debt to pay for their US degrees, which can total $200,000, will be unable to repay the loan.
Last month, even as the door for Indians to secure H-1B visas was effectively shut by the $100,000 fee, the media in India extensively covered Srinivas Gopalan being named Chief Executive of T-Mobile and Rahul Goyal, as CEO of Molson Coors, two major American companies.
Such coverage of highly successful Indian professionals also influences students in India to pursue degrees in the US. However, the stories are misleading since they do not point out that, typically, those achieving major success are graduates of the highly selective Indian Institutes of Technology or other top education institutions in India, as well as in the US, who then overcome intense competition among executives at companies as well among businesses in the US.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the prospects of Indian professionals achieving major success in the US are tiny, perhaps one in 1,000. This is because there may at best be a total of 5,000 major business founders, chief executives, leading surgeons and renowned scientists among the roughly five million Indians in the US.
Social media posts by Joshi and others, which point out the lack of jobs for students from India in the US, may dim the appeal generated by the major success of a few Indians in the US. In fact, partly due to social media posts by Joshi and others, the mainstream media in India is also covering the layoffs and lack of jobs for professionals from India in the US.
Last year, Ananya Joshi graduated with a MS in biotechnology from Northwestern University in Chicago. Her program lasted roughly two years, 2022-2024, according to her LinkedIn profile. So the total costs, including fees, boarding, food, and other expenses, was at least around $200,000. Joshi does not say whether she took a loan to pay for the costs.
Upon graduation from Northwestern, Joshi was hired by a biotechnology startup in Boston, on a temporary practical training (OPT) visa. Foreign STEM graduates of US universities can work in the US for a maximum of three years on such visas, if an employer sponsors them. Those with non-STEM degrees can work for only one year.
Joshi was laid off by the US startup apparently due to cost cuts. “Less than a year after getting my first job (in the US), I experienced my first lay off,” Joshi posted on Instagram. “It’s still shocking but I have been preparing for this moment for a couple of months now because it was expected with the current job market in the US.” She says she applied to 5,000 jobs, sent 300 emails to job recruiters, went through 30 job interviews but still could not find another job in the US.
A foreigner, whose employment ends on a temporary work visa, has sixty days to find another job in the US. If they do not find a job by the deadline, they have to leave the country or face major penalties, including deportation and permanent bar from re-entering the US. Joshi did not extend her stay in the US by pursuing another degree – unlike some students from India who borrow additional, large debt to do so, in the hope of finding a job on temporary work visas after their second US degree.
On the day she left the US, Joshi posted on Instagram, “By far the hardest step in this journey 💔 Even though I seemed to have accepted my reality, nothing could have prepared me for this day🙏.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Joshi apparently went to Dubai.