Record student visas last year, number likely to cross this year

New Delhi : After issuing a record 1,40,000 student visas last year, the US consular team in India is all geared up to meet the expected rise in number of applications from Indian students in 2024, with a senior official at the embassy here saying that the projected total number this year will be "similar or in excess" in comparison to last year.

The US Mission in India on Thursday held its eighth annual Student Visa Day countrywide with consular officers from New Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai interviewing Indian student visa applicants. At the US Embassy in Delhi, a long queue of students was seen since morning. American universities attract a large number of Indian students, and last year, the US consular team in India issued over 1,40,000 student visas -- higher than for any other country setting a record for the third year in a row.

Syed Mujtaba Andrabi, acting Consul General at US Embassy in New Delhi, said, "by the end of the day, we should have interviewed approximately 4,000 students. It (student visas) is one of our top priorities. Academic exchange between the two countries is one of the top priorities of this administration, and our Mission here. Last year, we issued a record number of student visas, numbering 1,40,000, which has been a record...And, we will continue to focus on this area, as we go forward during this year."

The US Embassy in statement said the number of Indians who choose to study in the US has increased significantly in the past three years. In 2023, the US Mission to India issued "more student visas than in 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined." This "unprecedented growth" reflects the ongoing commitment by the US government to prioritise students and to facilitate their travel, even as the Mission met a 400 per cent rise in demand for all other visas between 2021 and 2023, it said.

Garcetti had earlier also said that "a heroic effort" of a lot of dedicated public servants who worked weekends, arranged days just for students was instrumental in making sure that students met their deadlines and American universities could welcome a historic number of Indian students. Andrabi said it truly has been a heroic effort on part of the consular offices throughout the country, and one of the ways it has done is by "starting our student summer season in advance than we have done in prior years." "For instance, we normally start student summer season in June and it goes on till end of August. This year we started in May, and it will continue to go through till end of August, just to maximise the number of students.. give that opportunity, to first-time qualified applicants to apply interviews," he said.

Asked how the Mission was planning to reduce waiting time for visas, he said, "We have eliminated wait time in almost every category of visas, except B1/B2 tourist visitor visas for first-time applicants. And even that wait time we have reduced by over 70 per cent during the past year."