Student visas are the primary jumping-off point for most high-skilled immigrants to the United States. Immigrants study at America’s elite universities and then find jobs here when they graduate, mainly through the post-graduate employment authorization program called Optional Practical Training (OPT). These skilled workers are critical components of US competitiveness, innovation, and growth. Nonetheless, in the past few months, the administration has engaged in a shocking assault on international students.
The administration started by mass terminating status for at least 6,400 students based on dismissed charges, fishing license citations, traffic tickets, and other minor offenses. It suspended Harvard’s right to enroll foreign students entirely. Officials have arrested students who oppose US foreign policy, including by writing op-eds. Just this week, it temporarily suspended all student visa issuances to troll their social media to look for dissent and announced a new visa revocation policy for Chinese students. One Trump political appointee suggested this week that OPT should be ended.
These egregious and unjustified assaults come at a time when new statistics from the State Department show that, before Trump took office, the international student visa denial rate reached the highest level on record. The State Department rejected an unprecedented 41 percent of student visa applicants in 2024, surpassing 2023’s record of 36 percent.
Student visas are known as F‑1 visas. Figure 1 shows the F‑1 student visa denial rate compared with the visa denial rate for all other nonimmigrant (i.e., temporary) visa applicants. As it shows, student visas usually have a similar rejection rate to other nonimmigrant visa applicants. However, from 2021 to 2024, student visas were denied at nearly twice the rate of all other applicants. The student visa denial rate increased from a low of 15 percent in 2014 to 41 percent in 2024.
In 2024, consular officers denied a record 278,553 student visas. Figure 2 shows that more visas were rejected in 2024 than were issued in 2002 and 2005. The staggering number of denials occurred even as the number of issuances remained far below the peak year of 2015. Even in 2015, with far more applicants, there were fewer denials than in 2024. It now appears that the higher denial rates, which shot up in 2016, may have dissuaded some applicants from applying. The absolute number of total student visa applicants has declined, and student visa issuances have declined 38 percent from 2015 to 2024.
It is important to understand that before a student can even apply for an F‑1 visa, they must already be accepted into a government-approved university. This means that the US Department of State rejected 278,553 students who each would have paid an average of $30,884 per year, totaling approximately $8.6 billion annually in tuition and living expenses. Over four years, that number amounts to a significant $34.4 billion in lost tuition payments to the United States.
The State Department does not separately delineate the reasons for student visa denials, but nearly all nonimmigrant visas are denied for failing to prove “nonimmigrant intent” (that is, the desire not to move to the United States permanently). Applicants need to show sufficient ties to their home country that would impel them to return when their reasons for visiting have ended.
The nonimmigrant intent subjective standard can be enforced in a variety of ways. Consular officers are supposed to consider only someone’s “present intent,” not how their intention might change if opportunities arise in the United States to stay legally. In practice, there is very little consistency in application.
The unprecedented denials occurred even though the State Department officials in Washington, DC, attempted to return to a lower standard of evidence for students that existed before Trump. The Foreign Affairs Manual now states that students “should be looked at differently” because “typically, students lack the strong economic and social ties of more established visa applicants, and they plan longer stays in the United States.” It concludes that “the natural circumstances of being a student do not disqualify the applicant.” This change occurred in September 2021, before the start of fiscal year 2022.
The State Department hasn’t disclosed the denial rate by nationality in 2023 or 2024, but the rise and fall of Chinese students is the most important trend in student visa policy in recent years (Figure 3). In 2024, however, the biggest change was among Indian nationals. Indian consulates issued an unprecedented 130,839 student visas in 2023, which is by far the highest total for India ever. In 2024, that number fell to 86,110 student visas, a decrease of 34 percent.
According to data obtained by researchers through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, US consulates in India were far more likely to deny students than US consulates in China before the pandemic. Indians accounted for a record 29 percent of all student visa issuances in 2023 and 21 percent of all issuances in 2024, so their higher denial rate could have affected the worldwide average more. According to FOIA data obtained by researchers at Shorelight, the difference in denial rates between India and China persisted through 2022 (though the denial rate in 2022 in China was higher than it was in 2015). But the researchers do not present exact numbers.
The more significant issue here is how the Bureau of Consular Affairs handles visa interviews. The then-head of the Consular Affairs division in India is Don Heflin. He explained how student visa interviews work in April 2022:
Bring [bank statements] just in case the vice consul asks, but we are looking at this less than we used to. We know Indian families usually find a way [to pay].… Mostly it’s about explaining why this school and this curriculum makes sense to you. It’s what in American English we call the elevator pitch. You’ll have a minute and a half to tell us why this [school] makes sense to you. Don’t walk up and recite something from memory about the campus, the student body, and how old the school is.… Listen, I have a lot of Indian friends. I know that your father may have told you where you were going to go to school and what you were going to study. That’s fine. Tell us what he told you. Show us that it makes sense for you.
None of this information relates to the legal requirements for a student visa. This absurd method of adjudicating student visas explains why India has a much higher-than-average student visa refusal rate, even though Indian students are extremely successful in the United States. The United States should not pass on tens of billions of dollars in economic activity from these students because they memorized their “elevator pitch” on why they want to study computer science in Kansas. It’s totally irrelevant.
With the Trump administration escalating attacks on international students, the student visa denial rate will likely increase further. More importantly, fewer people will likely apply to study in the United States as the odds of acceptance fall. Never before has the US government so explicitly attempted to smash a hole in the skilled immigrant pipeline. Congress should act to protect student visas from these unjustified assaults.
This updates an earlier post.
