Report: Foreign students had $371.3M impact on Colorado in 2008-12

Scholars from other countries spent big in Colorado from 2008 to 2012, but the value of a foreign college student population extends far beyond graduation day, according to a report released Friday by the Brookings Institution.

Foreign students on F-1 visas spent $371.3 million to study and live in Colorado during the five-year period ...

OPT allows the students to work 12 to 29 months in the U.S. after they graduate ...

The F-1 visa application requires students to express their intent to return to their home countries, CU-Boulder international program director Larry Bell said. "But many of them have a short-term goal of gaining work experience before they return home."

Some, he said, stay on beyond the OPT program on temporary employment visas and later seek permanent residency.

"There is a bit of money to be made here and many of them continue on in the U.S.," Bell said. "They are in high-skill fields, like engineering and other STEM disciplines" ...