Foreign students prepare Plan B as US closes door
OVER the last few weeks, 28-year-old Raj Iyer and his family have been scrambling to figure out ways to fund his Master's programme at Columbia University in the United States.
Iyer, who used a pseudonym to avoid potential reprisals, received a partial scholarship but still needed to come up with nearly US$110,000 to cover tuition and living expenses, for which his family took out a loan and used their savings.
Now Iyer fears it is all for naught. Less than three months before classes start, Iyer has been left stranded after the US government announced it is pausing student visa interviews.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month instructed embassies to stop scheduling new visa appointments, saying the Trump administration would review the process and expand vetting of students' social media profiles.
Officials have not said when student interviews will resume, plunging the education of students from abroad into doubt, including those in India, the biggest contributor of international students to US schools of higher learning.
According to the US Embassy in India, more than 331,000 students went there in 2024.
Students hoping to attend university in the US are now deleting their social media posts, writing emails to their universities and laying out hastily crafted backup plans.
Even before the decision to pause student visas, the Trump administration had revoked visas or terminated visa records belonging to 1,600 international students by May 7, according to data from the US-based National Association of Foreign Student Advisors.
Indian students have borne the biggest brunt of these actions, the data showed, with 309 visas revoked, following closely by Chinese students.
In March, the Trump administration cancelled the visa of Indian PhD student Ranjini Srinivasan and called her a "terrorist sympathiser" for her pro-Palestine activism on campus.
Vibha Kagzi, founder and chief executive officer of ReachIvy, a Mumbai-based education consultancy that helps Indian students seek admission at foreign universities, said she was seeing "anxiety and a flurry of queries" from both students and parents.
"There's a deep sense of uncertainty, ranging from fear of deferral to questions around return on investment," Kagzi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Iyer, a filmmaker, is especially concerned about the introduction of stringent social media vetting and is unfollowing pages and undoing previous "likes" on political posts on his accounts.
"I have always been a person with strong convictions, and I don't walk back on them. I am going to a place where I know my freedom of speech is going to be curtailed," he said. "This is making me feel like a hypocrite."
Some of the students interviewed for this story said their universities had not reached out about potential next steps.
Kagzi said she was advising students to "keep calm" and wait for updates from their schools, including possible alternatives, like online classes.
The uncertainty has prompted some Indian students to consider enrolling at universities outside of the US.
Lakshmi and her partner had been looking at a half-dozen American universities for the PhDs they both want to pursue.
But a crackdown on political activism on US campuses, the deportation of students and earlier changes in visa rules has prompted them to look elsewhere.
"In February, we decided that we won't go to the US at all and are now looking entirely at European universities," said Lakshmi, using a pseudonym.
Lakshmi said the decision to turn to Europe comes with reduced funding options, shorter PhD programmes and fewer work opportunities after earning her degree.
For those still hoping to study in the US, the delay in visa appointments may force them to put off the start of their studies.
Even without the pause, the online State Department calendar shows the average wait time for a student visa is as long as two months in Mumbai, where Iyer is applying.
Unless the embassy restarts visa interviews soon, Iyer fears it will be too late. "I feel like I am running out of time," he said.
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