Comparing the 2024-2026 incoming student flows to the 2015-2020 incoming student flows, numbers have collapsed - up to a quarter fewer students chose to come to the US. Instead, The UK, Germany, Ireland, France are benefitting overall. Indian students have redirected towards these as well as to Japan and Australia, whereas Chinese students either now stay home or choose Hong Kong or Australia.
Some countries see +100%, +150%, +200% incoming students whereas the US saw a decades low of +9%.
I would have been interested to see the drop off between say 2022 or 2023 and the latest data to see what the impact of the more recent changed approach to issuing visas is.
I don’t have a problem with the proposed 4-year “limit” (it isn’t a limit, just requires a visa renewal) because there have been clear abuses of the current “duration of stay” policy, but Reddit is full of people who have been trying to get visa appointments for months, just can’t, and are having to defer or withdraw their admissions (some colleges won’t allow a deferral because of visa issues), which is just a terrible way to treat people who have gone through the application process and done everything they are supposed to do and are finding their plans for the next year entirely upended. Consulates used to prioritize student visa appointments among the non-immigrant visas because the time sensitivity was understood.
The proposed limitations on the H1B work visa also impact these decisions by the international students. Studying in the US for 4+ years and then gaining actual work experience in the US afterwards was a real driver for these students wanting to come here in the first place. Regardless of the status of the current job market, government intervention to make H1B virtually impossible to attain ($100K fee) is a major deterrent. I believe the fee was recently struck down by a federal judge, but the uncertainty is still there.
The $100k fee never applied to people who changed status to H1B within the US, only to those who got their H1B visas at a consulate abroad. So this doesn’t affect most students, who follow this pathway within the US.
Agree. And as someone who has used the H1B for hiring in critical roles, believe me– companies were NOT using it to “undercut the market” as many have alleged. And were NOT using it to avoid following relevant labor laws, whether federal or state.
Were there abuses? Absolutely. There are restaurants that are not declaring tips, or not paying employees during their mandated lunch breaks, or hiring kitchen staff “off the books” entirely and paying them $3 an hour. Does that mean you close down the restaurant industry?
Making it impossible to hire skilled professionals and claiming that these jobs will go to Americans instead is ludicrous.
If a pharma company needs someone with a doctorate in bio with research experience in genetic eye disorders, that job is NOT going to the unemployed coal miner in West Virginia. And making it more expensive to get the H1B means instead of staffing up a team of researchers, the company will hire 1.
And 10 years from now, the families with that disorder will wonder why it’s taking so long for a promising new intervention to wind its way through the clinical trial process.
But the renewal is not guaranteed and could be subject to (even more) political machinations. That’s in addition to the difficulty in getting appts. There’s nothing to stop the government from saying sorry, we just aren’t processing/approving student visa renewals at this point.
Coming here for one’s degree is an even bigger risk now than it was before the 4 yr renewal requirement, IMO.
I can give a single data point. I am familiar with a graduate school that has a relatively large international population. International students dropped off during and in the aftermath of Covid - but so did the total student enrollment. Those students already in the U.S. for undergrad weren’t as affected, so the overall international population only dropped off a bit. The number of students interested in coming to the U.S. for a graduate degree has dropped in the past year, and students who do want to come are experiencing visa issues (delays in getting both appointments and approval decisions). Students are weeks away from their program start date without a visa. This will absolutely negatively impact future admissions.
I think the 2021-2022 period was considered COVID recovery so they couldn’t really compare so to have a solid base they needed to compare with pre COVID, keeping in mind growth had been the norm.
Maybe not under that particular proposal, but the anti-H1B efforts in general, paired with the additional restrictions towards foreign student visas, and the general unpredictability of these policies are probably major reasons behind the reduced numbers.
Agree 100%. We are sending a “don’t bother coming here” message across the board with the various changes to our immigration policies. I understand the hope? naivete? which leads some people to believe that by keeping out foreigners we’re protecting high paying jobs for our own citizens. But losing doctoral students (who go on to get patents, create companies, employ dozens or hundreds of people) is so misguided. And can we afford to lose the healthcare workers who in many cases are willing to work in rural areas where our own professionals don’t want to relocate?