As an MBA student looking for a job, Terry-Ann Denton felt potential employers lost interest in her when they realized she was not a U.S. citizen.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Vikas Pawar, a native of India, graduated from Katz Graduate School of Business and wanted to stay in the United States to work. Through a program at the University of Pittsburgh, he received legal assistance and was able to get a work visa. He is employed by SJ Consulting in Wexford. Click photo for larger image.

Faced with applying for an H-1B visa -- a document that would allow Denton to work permanently in the United States -- employers would "get withdrawn. I got the feeling they believed it was too tedious, too much work." It didn't help that the cost to employers to obtain an H-1B can total around $4,000 per individual.

But in the past year or so, Denton, who last month earned a master's of business administration from the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business, had some leverage to help appease employers' concerns. She told them Pitt was willing to pick up the costs and facilitate the paperwork for the H-1B visa that would qualify her to work at their companies.

"There seemed to be a shift in attitude" once employers learned about Pitt's program, called Katzport, said Denton, who has accepted a job offer from Alcoa and is set to begin work in its audit department next month. "It's a way to mitigate any problems of being an international student."

Since it launched Katzport in January 2004, Pitt has financed three H-1B visas for international students including Denton, who grew up and worked in the accounting field in Jamaica before coming to the United States to complete her education. Several others are in the works. "It's really our way of providing something value-added to our recruiters," said Terri Gregos, assistant dean and director of career services at the Katz School.

The program also helps Pitt boost its own recruiting of international students who might worry about employment in the United States once they graduate. The school designed the program primarily as a way to help small- and midsized companies that don't have resources or expertise to deal with immigration and visa issues.

"It's a significant barrier when employers are reluctant to pursue H-1B visas," said Lawrence Lebowitz, an immigration law specialist with Downtown firm Cohen & Grigsby who oversees the legal steps in the process for Pitt.

"A lot of schools help with recruiting and placement. But this goes a step beyond that. If you get a job offer, [Pitt] will take care of the cost of the H-1B visa."

Besides the expense, the paperwork can be daunting to employers, who are supposed to prove that the person applying for the visa has skills more specialized than U.S. citizens. The government has set a cap on how many H-1Bs can be issued annually, which stands at 85,000 in the current fiscal year that runs through September, up from 65,000 in the past fiscal year.

The cap peaked at 195,000 a year in the booming economy before 9/11, but was limited again after the economy soured and U.S. companies were forced to lay off hundreds of thousands of workers.

Opponents pushed for restricting immigrant workers for the sake of U.S. citizens seeking jobs. Homeland security concerns also have acted to stem the tide of immigrant workers -- or at least made it more difficult to obtain work here.

The changes have raised the stakes for international students and for colleges and universities whose graduate schools historically have drawn students from all over the world. At Katz, for example, about 32 of its 80 full-time MBA students -- or 40 percent -- come from other countries.

Hiroshi Saito, 35, moved to Pittsburgh from Japan to earn his MBA. He planned to return to his native country after graduation last year, but his wife was pregnant and the couple decided to stay in the United States.

Applying for jobs without an H-1B "was an obstacle I had to get over," Saito said. "Some companies declined to interview me; I didn't see a future career path."

Saito eventually landed at Okaya USA, which wanted applicants with permanent work visas. Through Katzport, Saito was able to obtain his quickly at no cost to his employer.

He now works for Okaya in Hurricane, W.Va., where he is overseeing the opening of a warehouse that will supply machinery and tools to Toyota and other automakers.

"My transition from a student visa to working visa status went really smoothly. I was not just looking for a job, I was looking for a career; and Okaya presented me with a clear vision and long-term career path."

Pitt touts Katzport as the only program of its kind among large U.S. business schools, but other institutions may begin offering similar help as they work to recruit foreign students.

The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business announced last month that it would partner with Pittsburgh-based law firm Reed Smith to offer free consultations to companies that might consider hiring its foreign graduates.

The school will not pay the legal fees or costs, but Reed Smith will discount its fees for companies that decide to pursue an H-1B application for one of its students.

The total cost to the employer, including the discount, is about $3,200, said Steve Tiufekchiev, associate director of employer development for the Smith School of Business. About 40 percent of that school's 155 MBA students are international, he said.

Like Pitt's Katzport, the University of Maryland's effort with Reed Smith is targeted at small- and medium-size companies that otherwise might not consider hiring foreign graduates.

"We see companies in the $40 million sales range as our target," said Peter Brown, director of employer development for the school.

"Those companies are in a high-growth curve. They want the best work force possible, and that often comes from an international talent pool."

Even with the financial and legal help that Katzport brings to the H-1B visa process, one employer said it should not be the overriding reason to hire an applicant.

"The person has to qualify and meet the criteria to fill the position," said Satish Jindel, who runs a Sewickley-based transportation and logistics consulting and design business, SJ Consulting Group Inc.

Jindel hired Vikas Pawar, a native of India and Pitt MBA graduate, after Pawar worked as an intern at his company.

Katzport helped smooth the way for Pawar to obtain his H-1B and saved SJ Consulting money on legal fees, said Jindel.

"But Vikas had to stand on his own. The university taking an interest in helping people with foreign backgrounds get placed is good. But the [financial savings] alone doesn't influence whether to hire the person or not."