part time tuition sponsor on H1B

[shaa]

Hello friends,

If I decide to pursue part time PHD while on H1B , is univ professor allowed to pay for my tuition ?

I wonder if employer is allowed to sponsor H1B employees tuition, can third party .(like a university professor) finance my tuition (while employee is on H1B with somebody else)

I will be doing research / studies from home and will attend evening classes while working full time on h1b.

Thank you

R

[JoeF]

You can not get tuition reimbursement from the university or professor, not even indirectly.

[livliv]

Unfortunately that is not possible directly. The second employer (University) will have to file a concurrent H1 petition for you and after approval you can get paid from the University.

[shaa]

i will not see any amount in my account, tuition will directly go from professor to the university.........also i wont be getting any stipend from the university,

if some body (professor in this case) is willing pay for my part time studies by his own, that is still not allowed?..........is there any way to go around ?

thanks in advance.

[shaa]

Unfortunately that is not possible directly. The second employer (University) will have to file a concurrent H1 petition for you and after approval you can get paid from the University.

I wont be getting paid from University. Its just somebody is paying for my part time studies,

[JoeF]

Unfortunately that is not possible directly. The second employer (University) will have to file a concurrent H1 petition for you and after approval you can get paid from the University.

I doubt that universities file H1s for PhD students. And the professor himself would have to run a company and pay the prevailing wage for him to file an H1. Rather unlikely, with the salary structure for graduate student research assistants.

So, the bottom line: the employer could reimburse the person for the tuition (in fact, there are quite a number of employers who do that), but the professor can not.

[JoeF]

i will not see any amount in my account, tuition will directly go from professor to the university.........also i wont be getting any stipend from the university,

Doesn't matter. It is still not possible.

if some body (professor in this case) is willing pay for my part time studies by his own, that is still not allowed?..........is there any way to go around ?

There are no workarounds.

[JoeF]

The only workaround would be for you to change to F1. Of course, then you can't work for your employer anymore, but you can work on campus, e.g., as TA or RA, and get a tuition waiver.

Oh, and with your H1 salary, you should easily be able to pay the tuition, anyway.

[shaa]

Doesn't matter. It is still not possible.

There are no workarounds.

this is little confusing.

As per the info I gathered so far,

common conclusion is " On h1 one can accept merit based scholarship in terms of waiver as long as student does not accept any stipend/pay check from the University and H1B part time student should not be on Univ's payroll . So one can not be TA/ RA at the University but getting a merit based waiver or scholarship is not a problem. It should not be a need bases scholarship"

[livliv]

The problem is not payment. The problem is work. On H1B you have limited work authorization to work for your H1 sponsoring employer only. If the scholarship is a pure scholarship that does not require any teaching or research work you can accept it.

You cannot work even without pay (unless it is a purely voluntary position, such that all others in that position are unpaid, such as religious, charitable or volunteer organizations).

[hpagey]

I am currently pursing my part time phd and I am on H1. When I converted from F1 to H1B my employer paid my tuition and I surrendered my TA/RA contract. Maybe, if you have fellowship, that might be another story.

[patkris]

Is there room for a scholarship given by an individual?