In A Changing World Order, Students And Parents Must Revisit Foreign Degrees
Rising visa refusals, soaring costs, and hostile politics are dimming the middle-class dream of foreign degrees, forcing families to rethink.
The Gist
Amid rising visa rejections, Indian students are urged to reconsider their educational choices and explore opportunities within India.
- Parents are investing heavily in overseas education, but many graduates struggle to find jobs abroad.
- Business leaders are recognising the need for quality education in India, leading to the rise of prestigious institutions.
- Students should evaluate their plans for studying or working overseas, considering potential changes in the global visa landscape.
An Indian researcher said in a LinkedIn post recently that after 14 years of navigating the US visa system, he finally became a permanent resident there.
"Green card in hand — after 14 years, the visa clock has stopped ticking,” the Hindustan Times, which usually finds a similar story of struggle and despair every other day, quoted the researcher as saying.
The researcher in question provides all the excruciating details of his journey, including the many types of visas he had applied for and not applied for.
The other stories in the same vein, which are clearly providing SEO glory right now for the publishers, are the ones about US B1/B2 tourist-cum-business visas being denied.
Those denied visas range from professionals to families and even government officials who land up at the interview counter with reams of paperwork only to be sent back without a US visa.
Several newspapers and websites now catalogue these stories faithfully.
And highlighting the stories, mostly pulled from LinkedIn and Facebook confessions, is evidently useful for more eyeballs.
Obviously, because people are reading them.
No Visas For Indians
You may not be lining up for a US visa right now, but there is something evocative about these human stories of our countrymen wanting to visit the US if only for a vacation and being denied that opportunity.
Because, among other things, they are people like us.
An unconfirmed estimate said Indian applicants experienced a refusal rate of approximately 27–30% for US B1/B2 visas in 2024.
This figure was apparently better than the previous year.
The most common reason for rejection of a US B1/B2 tourist visa is failure to prove strong ties to the home country, which falls under Section 214(b) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act.
Which is precisely what many Indians want to do, that is, emigrate, if not now, then later.
But the US isn’t the only country rejecting visas to Indians.
Around one in six applications to visit Europe or the Schengen region were rejected last year.
India was also the third-largest source of Schengen visa applications in 2024, submitting 1.1 million requests, according to data released by the European Commission in May this year.
Of these, 936,748 visas were granted, while 165,266 were refused — putting India’s rejection rate at 15%.
Immigration Angst
While visiting for tourism or business is not the same as going to study or to work, the visa approval overview appears to now follow a common thread.
This is most visible in the United States, where interviewees are now subject to ‘extreme vetting’.
The Indian government revealed in March that the total number of students going abroad fell by nearly 15% in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Canada saw the steepest decline, with numbers dropping 41%, followed by the UK at 27.7% and the US at 13%.
Meanwhile, interest in countries like Germany, France, and Italy has grown, the report said.
There is no doubt whatsoever that all these numbers — refusals and denials — will increase in 2025 even though countries like Germany are putting out an olive branch.
We must also accept that we are seeing more visa stories in the media because of the angst around immigration in the United States, or for that matter, even the UK, Canada and Australia.
And then there is the latest H1B $100,000 fee issue, where we are all forced to feel sorry for the plight of a few hundred thousand wannabe US citizens in the guise of saving our IT services industry.
There is no doubt though, that statistically, 2025 will be worse than before.
Peer Pressure
Much has been written about how parents are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for their children to get undergraduate degrees with the hope of a master's degree or a job there, which in turn does not always materialise.
Students will find it tougher to study in the US now and in the coming years.
This may be the case with Europe and other preferred countries too, but since the Schengen area has always been miserly with its visa issuances, discussion is limited.
Equally, we have to address and counsel students in their earlier years on what education options really are.
I can see around me that by the time students reach 11th grade, they are already planning a life outside.
Parents appear to have limited choice in the matter, particularly if they can somewhat afford the fees.
There is also considerable peer pressure, and it starts much earlier, including in the chosen form of school systems, like the IB or International Baccalaureate system.
Revising Foreign Degrees
The world order is changing.
Students and parents have to revisit their education preferences much earlier and not aim for the US or Canada as a primary choice.
And not rush to Germany for instance just because a window has opened up there, particularly if that was not the original plan.
The problem, of course, is that there are limited opportunities for humanities students in India.
This is changing, but maybe not fast enough.
Many business leaders have already recognised this as an opportunity to set up high calibre universities. They have also noted that good quality humanities education in India can hold back students. And that’s already happening.
We have seen in recent years that students have preferred to go to an Ashoka University, FLAME, Krea or Jindal — there are more — than go overseas.
The bottom line is more than parents, it is students who must realise where their near future lies — whether they want to go overseas to study now or to work later, through the H1B route.
While they should explore studying overseas, they can surely wait a few more years, as their predecessors have done.
Maybe the rupee will be stronger by then as well.
