US Student Visa Update: F-1 visa denials soar, over 40% of applicants face rejections: Report

Amid the looming tariff threat rattling the global economy, a latest report say that the US administration has been rejecting the student visa at a record rate. An Indian Express report on Monday said that the student visa denial by the US hit decadal high with over 40 percent applicants facing rejection.

The IE report citing the data from October 2023 to September 2024 fiscal year said that the denial by the US State Department doubled in comparison from 2014 trends. The IE report said that out 6.79 lakh applications that the US State Department received in fiscal of 2023-24, 2.79 lakh applications were rejected.

So far, the US administration has not come up with the nation-wise breakup. For the uninitiated, the F-1 visas are non-immigrant visas meant for the students. The F-1 visas are eligible for students who have been selected by the American educational institutions for a particular academic year. On the other hand, M-1 visas are for non-academic applicants.

Of the total student visas issued by the US, F-1 visas account for around 90 percent. The IE report also said that on the nation-wise breakup, the US State Department said that it doesn’t publish ‘granularity requested’ Citing its earlier report, the IE pointed to a sharp slump in student visa applications from India. In 2023, over 1 lakh Indian students were issued the US visa. However, that number dropped to 64,008 between January 2024 to September 2024.