U.S. Student Visas: Indians Dominate Chinese

Anyone who knows something about international students is well aware that the universities are full of Chinese students, or so was the case till the time the pandemic broke out and changed the world dynamics forever. Now, 77,799 F1 visas have been issued to Indian students as compared to the Chinese in January-July 2022.

Before the pandemic, Indian students contributed $8 billion to the US up until 2019. However, this was half of what the Chinese were paying at a whopping $16 billion. In fact, the US earned $44 billion in 2019 from international students.

In 2021, the Chinese got 99431 visas, while Indians came second at 87258 visas. Incidentally, South Korea comes third with 16,865 students making it to the US in 2021. However, once the pandemic situation improved, Indian students surely held their sway as they got visas more easily.

After the US, many students prefer the UK, and even in the UK, Indian students secured 117,965 visas, far exceeding Chinese. This shows an 89% rise in student visa share for Indians. While there was a 21% rise in Indian visa requirements, there was a 4% dip in wanting UK visas as far as the Chinese were concerned.

The fact that various pandemics are still rampant in China and the discrimination of Chinese students following COVID could be the reasons for the dip.