What Options Do Indian Students Have With US Visa Reforms

If the US won’t let Indian students stay back to work, who stands to gain?

Sawini Kabi fears she may have to reconsider her higher education plans. The Class 12 student has been accepted by the Florida Institute of Technology for an engineering course but is no longer sure if an undergraduate programme in the United States is a good idea.

Kabi’s apprehension stems from media reports in January of a leaked draft of what is allegedly an unsigned executive order that talks about cancelling the stay-on period for overseas students in the US – extensions of one year for work and practical training for all students, and two years for science and technology graduates. “If I cannot work there for some years, I do not really see the point in going,” she said.

Even rumours can be devastating for the thousands of Indian students heading abroad, for whom the programme of study is rarely the only consideration. A major deciding factor for those digging into their savings or taking loans to pay for their courses is how easy a country makes it for them to join its workforce. “You want to earn money in the same currency you are spending,” said Shray Jindal of Global Education Consultancy Services.

Education consultants expect the uncertainty over visa regulations in the US to lead to greater interest in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. The size of Indian contingents to these countries have already grown significantly over the past six years.

In 2015-2016, over 1.6 lakh students from India were enrolled in American universities, making the US the top higher education choice for Indians, according to the Open Doors Report on international students. “It [the US] was the big one,” said education counselor Pervin Malhotra. “Students could work, it has a large Indian diaspora community, people felt comfortable.”

Arshad Nasser, studying industrial design at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, planned to apply to US universities for a PhD but has been forced to reconsider. “Students take large sums from India and you need a window to earn at least a part of that,” he said. “Not long ago, my friend completed a two-year master’s programand was able to repay her loan within a year of working in California.” The stay-on period is also when companies recruit and students attempt to obtain work visas.

Sthithpragya Gupta, a final-year mechanical engineering student at  , has applied to American universities for a master’s in robotics. “The opportunity to work in the US was my primary reason for not applying to universities in Europe,” he said. “My plan was to study, work for five-six years there to gain experience and then return to set up something on my own. This was meant to be a long-term investment.”

Such a plan seems more and more uncertain now in the backdrop of the document leak as well as the Donald Trump administration’s entry ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries and its reported plans to overhaul the H-1B work visa program.

However, the furor over US visa reforms has impacted some students more than others. Piyush Agrawal of Abroad Education Consultants observed that applicants from non-STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) backgrounds were more put off by the rumors than their counterparts in science. “Also, members of the Muslim minority are no longer considering the US,” he added.

Reflecting this concern, the first statement Arshad Nasser made when asked about studying in the US was, “I am a Muslim.” He said he knew of friends “who just want to complete their study and get out.”

With the United Kingdom a difficult proposition and the United States looking uncertain, students in India are hauling out and dusting their back-up plans.

For Kabi, it is Canada. “My daughter had applied in four US universities and one in Canada,” said her mother, Sovana Sangram. “We had planned to apply at a second Canadian university but when she received her confirmation from Florida, we did not. But we will now think about it and take a decision.”

Consultants Malhotra, Jindal and Agrawal all agreed that Canada would see a sharp increase in interest. Statistics from the Canadian Bureau for International Education showed that in 2015-2016, 49,000 (14%) of the 353,000 international students enrolled in the country’s universities were Indians – a growth of over 25% from their numbers in 2014-2015.

“In Canada, you can get a work permit for up to three years after graduation,” said Agrawal, explaining the spike.

Australia, too, is highly popular and, judging by the anxious queries they are fielding daily, education consultants expect it to get even more so. Records with the Indian High Commission in Australia showed that in 2015, 42,166 Indians were enrolled in higher education institutions and vocational education training programs there. In 2016, that number rose to 49,280 – while enrollment in language and other short-term courses and schools took it up further to 51,809.

New Zealand is also seeing a massive influx of Indians students, with their numbers rising from 11,415 in 2010 to 28,370 in 2015, according to statistics available on the government website Education Counts.

For IIT student Arshad Nasser, his Plan B is either Germany or Italy. “They are leaders in my discipline, industrial design, and education is subsidized or free,” he explained.

Germany, despite the language barrier outside educational institutions, has seen Indian enrollments more than double from 5,038 in 2010-2011 to 13,740 in 2015-2016, according to the DAAD-German Academic Exchange Service. Jindal pointed out that the country allows students to stay on for 18 months after their graduation, with or without a job.

Apart from these popular choices, Jindal said countries like Finland, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden were also attracting Indian students. “Most of them have some entirely free or heavily subsidized programs,” he said. “And with some of the European countries, you get a Schengen visa, and with their train networks, you can travel to other countries to appear for interviews too.”