END OF THE DREAM

THE TRUMP CLAMPDOWN SLAMS THE DOOR ON ASPIRING INDIAN STUDENTS

- BY KAUSHIK DEKA, SONAL KHETARPAL and SHELLY ANAND

A CHILL WIND IS BLOWING THROUGH THE HALLOWED HALLS OF AMERICAN ACADEMIA, a wind carrying uncertainty and dashing the hopes of aspiring international students, particularly tens of thousands from India. The Trump administration, in a series of abrupt and unsettling moves, has begun to dismantle the welcome mat for global talent. The decision to pause new student visa appointments at US embassies worldwide on May 27, including in India, has plunged countless young scholars into a state of anxious limbo.

This pause, officially justified by the need to expand the scrutiny of applicants' social media activity, is no mere procedural tweak; it signals a profound shift.

For Indian students who have meticulously planned their futures around the promise of an American education, the dream now seems to teeter precariously on the edge of an opaque and shifting policy landscape, forcing many to question if the United States remains a safe or stable choice for their ambitions. One only has to look at the numbers to understand the implications of what is unfolding. In the 2023-24 academic year, the US hosted a record 1.13 million international students. Indian students accounted for 331,602, or around 30 per cent, of them, up by 23 per cent from the year before, while Chinese enrolment fell 4 per cent amid political tensions. A majority of the Indians choose STEM (scitech, engineering, mathematics) fields-42.9 per cent opted for maths and computer science, 24.5 per cent engineering that year. This is the talent that has helped fuel America's robust start-up ecosystem.

While there is no nationality-wise break-up, estimates are that one in four US billion-dollar start-ups was founded by a former international student; immigrants have also co-founded nearly two-thirds of America's top AI (artificial intelligence) companies.