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US F-1 visa issuance to Indian students drops 38% in first nine months of 2024
According to US State Department data, between January and September of this year, 64,008 F-1 visas were granted to Indian students, a significant drop from the 1,03,495 issued during the same period in 2023.
Representative Image / Image- Pixabay
The United States has recorded a sharp 38 percent decline in F-1 student visas issued to Indian nationals during the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period last year.
According to US State Department data, between January and September of this year, 64,008 F-1 visas were granted to Indian students, a significant drop from the 1,03,495 issued during the same period in 2023.
This number is also reportedly lower than the 93,181 issued in 2022 and marginally higher than the 65,235 recorded in 2021, marking the lowest post-pandemic level.
The F-1 visa, which constitutes over 90 percent of all US student visa issuances annually, is issued to students attending academic institutions in the United States. This decline comes despite recent milestones achieved by Indian students in US higher education.
In the 2022-23 academic year, India surpassed China in new F-1 visa issuances for the first time. Additionally, during the 2023-24 academic year, Indians became the largest international student cohort in the US, with 3,31,000 students enrolled, according to the Open Doors 2024 report.
However, the downward trend in visa numbers is not exclusive to Indian students. Chinese nationals, the second-largest group of international students in the US, also experienced an 8 percent reduction in F-1 visa issuances during the same period. From January to September 2024, 73,781 visas were issued to Chinese students, down from 80,603 in 2023.
This decline is significant given the contrast to recent years. In 2020, a pandemic-affected year, just 6,646 F-1 visas were issued to Indian students during the same timeframe. The figures for 2024, while higher than those in 2020, represent a notable departure from the robust growth seen in subsequent years when Indian students played a pivotal role in the post-pandemic resurgence of international enrollments at US universities.
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