Every year, millions of applications are submitted from India for student and visitor visas to countries like the United States and Canada. However, the current year has witnessed a sharp decline in the approval of US student visas, particularly those under the F-1 category, while approvals for visitor visas have increased.
In August of last year, 12,867 student visas were granted, but this figure dropped significantly to just 5,532 in August 2024. This downward trend reflects a notable decrease in the number of Indian students pursuing higher education in the United States.
According to data from the US government’s visa approval records, in June 2023, 40,224 student visas were issued, while this year, the number fell to 26,747. July figures also saw a drop from 31,803 last year to 14,607 this year. In total, 88,556 student visas were approved in 2023, but this year the figure stands at 58,726 – a reduction of approximately 20 to 25 percent.
Student visa expert Parthesh Thakkar attributes this decline to several factors, including Indian students’ selection process for American universities, insufficient research on academic course options, and inadequate preparation for exams such as the TOEFL and GRE, which are essential for admission to master’s programmes.
In contrast, there has been a marked increase in the number of Indian nationals travelling to the United States on visitor visas. For B1-B2 category visas, approvals more than doubled, with 50,525 visitor visas granted in April 2023, compared to 101,760 in April 2024. A similar rise was observed in August, where last year 49,652 visitor visas were approved, while this year the figure rose to 59,903.
Between April and August 2023, a total of 261,405 visitor visas were approved. During the same period in 2024, that number surged to 364,841, reflecting an increase of over 100,000 visas.
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