82,000 student visas have already been issued by US embassies in India this year, more than any other year before, and Indian students have received more American student visas than students from any other nation.
In order to ensure that as many qualified students as possible arrived at their programmes of study in time for the scheduled start dates, the US embassy in New Delhi and the consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai gave priority to processing student visa applications from May to August, the embassy said in a statement.
“We issued over 82,000 student visas this summer alone, more than in any previous year. This shows that the United States remains for most Indian families the most sought-after country for higher education,” said charge d’affaires Patricia Lacina, the senior-most US diplomat in India.
“We are happy to see so many students were able to receive visas and reach their universities after the delays caused in previous years by the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said.
This also highlights the important contributions Indian students “make to both our countries as they build life-long connections with American peers to maintain and grow international partnerships”, Lacina said.
Don Heflin, the minister counsellor for consular affairs, said, “International student mobility is central to US diplomacy, and nowhere is the contribution of students bigger than in India.”
Throughout the epidemic, the US remained open to international students, and in 2020, the US government and higher education institutions put policies in place to safely welcome foreign students in-person, online, and through hybrid learning techniques.
According to the “Open Doors” report from 2021, there were 167,582 Indian students in the US during the academic year 2020–21, making up over 20% of all international students.
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