Indian students who dream of studying in America have faced difficulties. After Donald Trump returns to the White House in January 2025, it has become extremely difficult for Indian students to get a F1 student visa. According to data from the US State Department, there has been a huge decrease in the F1 visa given to Indian students.
Heavy decline in visa
Indian students received 86,067 F1 visas in the US financial year 2024 (October 1 to 30 September), which is 34% lower than last year. The decline in the first six months (January-May) of 2025 increased, when only 11,484 visas were received, ie a decrease of 29% compared to the previous year’s 16,105. On the other hand, there has been a 28% increase in student visa to Pakistan’s neighbor and stressful relations Pakistan. India’s rival China faced only 8% decrease in sending students to America. This change is not only limited to statistics, but also at the policy level.
Trump’s strict policies
Trump has tightened the visa rules just like his first term. In May 2025, American embassies were instructed to stop student visa appointments and to conduct a thorough investigation of social media profiles. According to open doors data, more than 11 lakh international students were studying in American colleges and universities in 2023–24. Of these, there were more than 3,30,000 Indians, that is, one in every three students from India. [https://opendoorsdata.org/fact_sheets/fast-facts/] But now Trump’s new sanctions have created problems for Indian students.
There were difficulties already
Even before Trump’s new policies, the enrollment of foreign students in the US was decreasing. In 2024, 41% of student visa applications were rejected, which is the highest rejection rate in the last decade.
Effect of Indo-US stress
The increasing stress between Washington and New Delhi is also making this problem more serious. Last week, the Trump administration had threatened to impose 25% ‘anti -anti -counter’ tariff on Indian exports, which has now been increased to 50%. At the same time, Pakistan has only 19% tariff.
Monitoring on social media
In July 2025, the US State Department implemented a new rule, asking all students and exchange visa applicants to make their social media profiles public. Failure to do so can be considered suspicious, which increases the risk of rejected the visa. The Digital Rights Group Electronic Frontier Foundation has strongly criticized the move and described it as an attack on privacy and enhancing government monitoring.
Indian students’ difficulties
For Indian students, the dream of studying in America is now stuck between paperwork and diplomatic stress. Priyanshu (name changed), a student of Delhi, says I enrolled in the University of California, but the visa was rejected. Now I have to think about Canada or Australia.
