Totally Lost... (school, university, to live)

[Nyoko]

Hello, I'm in my first year of university and I was thinking a change in back ground would be nice. I was thinking of maybe moving down to the states to live for abit and have talked to alot of my friends about it but they've all been giveing me alot of info I just don't get....something about green cards and forums .....I've tried looking this up but all the websites I've seen just don't clear any of it up. Could anyone here pppplllzzzz clear up for me how I can get residence in the states so I'm able to work.

[Steel Man]

Best thing to do is hook up with a school in the US and get a student visa. Then after you graduate, you need to get hired by a US company willing to sponsor you for a 5-year working visa. Green cards (permanent resident aliens) are much harder to get.

[ChristieP]

Also keep in mind that as an international student, you will pay the highest possible tuition: out-of-state PLUS an international student surcharge. You'll also have to keep your student status current and you can't skip a semester or you'll invalidate that student visa and make yourself deportable.

5-year work visas (H1B) are only available for certain categories of employment, and not all employers will sponsor for one due to the extreme expense. Most of these are granted for engineers/computer programmers.