Catch F-2 for Spouses of Foreign Students

For partners of international B-school students, a dependent visa can mean a career put on hold

by Kerry Miller

When Joy Belmonte-Alimurung left her home in the Philippines to join her husband, Raymond Alimurung, at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 2005, the move from the urban environment of Manila to suburban Palo Alto, Calif., was more than just culture shock. It was, she says, "a 180-degree change in lifestyle."

In the Philippines, Belmonte-Alimurung had been a professional archaeologist as well as the head of two nonprofit organizations and an entrepreneur with several small businesses. Adjusting to her new role as a housewife was difficult. "I didn't know how to drive and had difficulty moving around," she says. "I had never been without work, and I found myself jobless and not allowed by U.S. law to earn an income. I had never been without a large support group of family and friends, and suddenly I was alone."

While the first year of B-school brought many challenges, Belmonte-Alimurung, now co-president of Stanford's partners group, BizPartners, says the greatest hardship was giving up the work she had spent years of her life training for. "I found it very challenging maintaining a balance between being supportive of my husband's dreams and ambitions while keeping sight of and continuing to pursue my life's goals."

She's not the only one.

Visa Restrictions

International students who come to the U.S. for B-school typically do so with either F-1 (foreign student) visas or J-1 (exchange visitor) visas, though F-1 visas are much more common among B-school students (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/22/03, "Smart Advice on Student Visas").

The spouses and kids of F-1 visa holders are eligible to come along, too, on F-2 dependent visas, and many of them do, rather than endure a long-distance relationship for two years. (The U.S. State Dept. reports 18,061 F-2 dependent visas were issued to spouses or children in 2005.) The F-2 visa, however, comes with a catch. When a student's spouse comes to the U.S. on an F-2 visa, he or she isn't allowed to work or study in a degree-granting program. For many, that proves to be a significant hardship.

Isabel Croes was forced to take a two-year break from her career as a mechanical project engineer when she came to the U.S. from Venezuela on an F-2 visa. Croes and her husband, Hernán Anzola, a second-year student at MIT's Sloan School of Management, found it expensive to afford two graduate studies at the same time, so they decided to postpone her own graduate education plans until her husband found a job. In retrospect, Croes says she wishes she had applied to grad school at the same time as her husband. As an engineer, living at—but not attending—MIT has been especially painful.

Feeling Left Out

Wharton School Admissions Director Thomas Caleel says the work issue is one he often discusses at recruiting events abroad. "When I'm overseas, I tend to be very candid and I do say it is difficult, because many times the partner won't have a work permit," he says. "But I think that they'll find a lot of support with other partners in the program. A lot of the partners embrace it as an opportunity to take two years and do something different."

Nidhi Thakur, PR co-chair of Chicago Partners, the partners group at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, says that it's very common for feelings of helplessness and frustration to manifest themselves among international partners who are forced to stop working at precisely the time when money is most needed. "I feel for them," says Thakur, a longtime U.S. resident originally from India.