Stricter US visa rules do not hamper student enrolments

United States, February 15: Despite tighter US visa rules and increased security measures by the immigration officials, an increasing number of international students continue to seek US student visa unabated.

Enrollments in various US colleges and universities did not see any decline in the percentage of overseas students pursuing studies and have continue to maintain the same rate since the US terror attacks in September 2001.

These findings were revealed by the latest figures of the National Center for Education Statistics. It was found that total enrolments for 
higher studies in the US remained stable at 3.5 percent since the year 2002 till 2009.

Although, there had been a marginal decline in the overseas student enrolments at US colleges in the years following the US terror attacks, but that decline was short-lived and the percentage of students recovered in the year 2007 and 2008 to get back to the percentage before the terror attacks in 2001.

The US immigration department has introduced tough laws for international students since the year 2008 as part of the Student and 
Exchange Visitor Program under the DHS (Department of Homeland Security).

Under these rules, rigorous screening measures including biometric checks and facial recognition have been made mandatory for all foreign students.

Various US educational institutes including US colleges and universities need to maintain undated records of all non-immigrant international students on rolls.

Meanwhile, there have been certain changes introduced in the US student visa rules to make the visa process more transparent and toattract qualified international students into the country while ensuring the security of the country. In one such effort, the DHS had made a provision to allow highly skilled and trained international students to live in the US for a period of up to 29 months under the optional practical training program for F-1 visa eligibility.

Nearly 671,616 overseas students were enrolled in the year 2008-09 in various US universities and colleges for higher studies registering a 7.7 percent increase in the number of overseas students as compared to the previous year (2007-08).