On July 7, US said that the visas of foreign students would not be renewed if they are studying fully online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The new order pertains to F1 students who are pursuing academic courses and M1 students who are pursuing vocation coursework.
These students are being forced to take immediate action since students who choose not to depart may face immigration proceedings.
However, most colleges and universities in the US have not yet finalized their plans for the fall semester even though many have come up with innovative measures to continue studies amidst the pandemic and lockdown.
This new order is a worrying matter for Indian students considering that the highesr number of foreign students in the US are from India.
The new order comes on the heels of a June 22 order from US President Donald Trump who called for a temporary suspension of the H1B visa and asked the administration to move towards merit-based immigration.
To know more about how the new decision by the US to not renew student visas impacts Indian students, we got talking to Sumeet Jain, Co-founder and a higher education expert at Yocket, one of India’s largest networks for study abroad aspirants.
What did the directive from US say about foreign students?
“Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States,” the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement on July 7.
“Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programmes must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status,” the statement said.
The earlier June 22 directive from President Trump said that a merit-based system would be introduced for the H1B visa in order to increase the opportunities for Americans to get jobs.
As per this merit-based system, only the highest-skilled and thus, the highest-paid applicants would get the H1B visa from foreign countries.
Indian students will not get F1 visas if they are going for an online course
Sumeet Jain says that Indian students who were thinking of going to US to study abroad for the Fall 2020 semester will not be getting F1 visas if their course is completely online.
“It won’t matter to them as the consulates are anyway not open yet. So for new students, this is very clear. They won’t get visas if they are going for a completely online course,” he explains.
So, if any student wants to go study in US with an F1 visa, they need to choose either a hybrid course or an on-campus course.
“Most of the students would be anyway deferring it to Spring 21 term. Anyway, not a lot of students were looking to join the online course from India, so the impact will be less,” Jain says.
He further explains that online courses were never eligible for an F1 visa and so, there has been no change in the policy.
“This year, looking at the pandemic, the universities were hoping for a change. But nothing changes. So for students, there is no change. They need not worry,” says Sumeet Jain.
How will this decision impact Indian students who are in the US on F1 visa?
Indian students who already have an F1 visa will need to come back and see if their university is resuming on-campus classes. If not, they would need to transfer to any US university which is resuming on-campus classes.
Jain says that considering the US decision to not renew F1 visas for students with online classes, many US universities would likely re-open their campuses for on-campus classes.
“Even the ones which have earlier said that they would go completely online, will now have to consider hybrid or on-campus classes, otherwise they will lose these students,” he says.
How will the decision to not renew F1 student visas impact US universities?
“The US universities which rely heavily on international students would be forced to open the campus or risk losing these international students,” explains Sumeet Jain.
“This is a move which is aimed at universities mostly and not students,” he says about the new order to not renew F1 visas.
“This is something which will choke their international student revenue which is huge and will force them to open the campus,” Jain says.
Overall, since F1 visas were never applicable for students pursuing online courses, this decision shouldn’t be a big cause of worry for Indian students.
Read: US temporarily suspends H1B visa: What does it mean for Indian students and employees?
Read: Why F-1 and H-1B visas are worse than you think for Indian students moving to US
Read: Planning to study in the US? Here’s a comparison of H1B and EB5 visa routes
