Ed Moore: Immigration reform key to education, workforce

Working in higher education allows me the privilege of working firsthand with some of the brightest and engaged minds in our state.

It is trite, but worth saying, that education is key to our country’s future and we must continue to equip the next generation with the knowledge and power to make our country even better than the generation before. We must also make sure the American Dream continues to be alive and well, taking root for those to come. That’s, in part, what made our country the best in the world. Our outdated immigration system is no longer serving us well; it is holding back some of the best and brightest from fully contributing to our economy, and we lose too many talented people forced to leave for other countries.

During the 2014-2015 school year, foreign-born students studying across the country contributed more than $30.5 billion to the economy through tuition, housing, and living expenses. Moreover, they helped support more than 370,000 jobs. Here in Florida, our international students only make up 3.9 percent of all college students, but they are having a profound impact, contributing $1.1 billion and supporting 14,000 jobs across a variety of industries.

While these students are contributing significantly during their studies, our country could gain even more by allowing these high-performing students to stay in America after graduation. Florida remains at the cutting edge of technology for aviation, aerospace, and life sciences, but many companies in the state lack the skilled workforce to meet the market demand. Over half of the state’s most research-intensive graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are foreign-born. In fact, over 66 percent of engineering Ph.D.’s are temporary residents, receiving their degrees and then being handed tickets to leave.

Despite these high numbers of qualified graduates, our outdated high-skilled visa program does not guarantee they can stay and fill much-needed STEM jobs in Florida. In 2014, over 115,900 STEM jobs were available, but the state only had 11,202 STEM workers. That means there were 10.3 jobs open for every one STEM worker. When we leave all of these jobs unfilled, our state and country misses out on the economic potential, the resulting innovation, and the ability to fully utilize these talented students. Instead, we send them back to their home country or to other more receptive countries which accept their knowledge and experience, creating jobs overseas, developing new ideas, and helping industries that compete with American companies.

Studies continue to show immigrants tend to have a higher propensity to start their own companies. In Florida, 33 percent of entrepreneurs are immigrants, demonstrating the profound impact immigrants can have on our state and nation as a whole. A larger national study found that immigrant-founded companies employed one in 10 American workers at private firms, leading to over $5.2 billion in business income in 2014. Our nation was founded by immigrants and continues to foster that entrepreneurial spirit because it is at the forefront of what makes our country so great. We can still be that shining city on a hill instead of a do-not-stay country.

Education is powerful, but it doesn’t have the same opportunities for many of the brightest foreign-born students across our country and state. We can’t let another year go by without modernizing our high-skilled visa program to meet the demands of a 21st century economy. We need to expand the visa program, potentially creating an estimated 18,100 new jobs in Florida by 2020. But, that is only the beginning. The reform would add almost $9 billion in Gross State Product. Just imagine how much that would do to giving our economy a much-needed boost. Beyond that, it could increase personal income by $8.7 million.

The economic facts are indisputable, so why have we not already passed needed reforms? In the midst of an election cycle, we are reminded daily of the challenges of finding consensus in such a polarizing political environment. As a swing state, Floridians hold great power this election cycle to support candidates up and down the ballot that recognize the important role immigrants play in our economy, and urging Congress to finally pass commonsense immigration reform in 2017, modernizing our outdated system that prevents our country from reaching our highest economic potential.

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Ed Moore is president of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida.