US eases visa rules for students from top supplier nations

The Biden administration is easing Covid-related visa restrictions on international students, addressing one element of what US universities regard as a looming enrolment crisis for the coming autumn semester.

The shift by the US State Department – covering major sources of college students that include China, Iran and Brazil – will let their students enter the US one month ahead of the start of their studies.

“It's good news,” said Sarah Spreitzer, director of government relations at the American Council on Education. “There was an extension already granted to European students, and we were hoping that they would expand that exemption.”

Yet US institutions remain anxious about the ability of the US government to actually process student visa applications in sufficient numbers, given that most US embassies and consulates – including those in China and India – have not been scheduling visa interviews.

US universities typically attract about 1 million overseas students, whose higher tuition fee rates make them an especially valuable share of the nation’s 20 million college students.

But the pandemic cut their ranks by nearly half in the current academic year, costing institutions an estimated $1.8 billion (£1.3 billion), and institutions are growing fearful that they will not get the rebound they need this coming year.

US universities recognise that American embassies and consulates in many locations are hampered by Covid conditions in their local areas, said Ms Spreitzer, of ACE, the main US higher education lobby group.

US consular operations are restricted to emergency situations in China, while those in India had some operational flexibility until the latest surge of Covid cases in that country, she said.

“We know the State Department is working very hard to get those reopened,” Ms Spreitzer said.

US institutions nevertheless have been disappointed, she said, by the US government’s inability or unwillingness to craft solutions, such as prioritisation of student visas or temporary waivers of requirements for in-person interviews of visa applicants.

“There are some internal security reasons that they can’t do that,” she said, describing the State Department’s response to the idea of interview waivers.

The need for expedited processing was especially important, Ms Spreitzer and other university advocates said, given the backlog of student visa applications from the past year.

One leading group of university experts in foreign study, Nafsa: Association of International Educators, called on the State Department both to address the backlog issue and to make clear how overseas students, professors and researchers will be treated under policies allowing exemptions from Covid-related travel restrictions.

“Important questions regarding eligibility and implementation remain” for those exemptions, said Jill Allen Murray, Nafsa’s deputy executive director of public policy.

Separately this week, the US Department of Homeland Security met another request of US universities by affirming that international students may remain in the US if their institution offers at least some classes in person.

The Trump administration had threatened foreign students with deportation if their campuses moved online during the pandemic, then backed off under legal pressure from US universities. Before Covid, US visas required foreign students to take almost all their classes in person.

Nafsa also has been urging the State Department to ease its worldwide Covid-related limits and legal cautions against outbound travel, citing the need to encourage US students to travel abroad.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com