Department of Homeland Security published new rules governing student visas. According to the updated federal policy, people who enter the U.S. on a student visa must complete their degree within four years — whether pursuing an undergraduate degree, a master’s degree, or a Ph.D. International students pursuing graduate studies at American universities will also not be able to change the subject of their studies or transfer between academic institutions. (Undergraduates may change or transfer after one year.) Within 30 days of completing their degree, they will need to arrange a new visa (sponsored, for example, by an employer) or leave the country.
Last week, university groups and labor unions filed a lawsuit to try to block the new rules, arguing that they would be “catastrophic” for higher education and the country at-large. But unless the court case succeeds, the rules are set to go into effect on Sept. 15 and apply across all fields of study and students’ countries of origin. The new requirements are certain to be disruptive for undergraduate students.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, fewer than half of enrolled students — just 44 percent — complete their (nominally four-year) undergraduate degree in four years. The problem will be more severe for doctoral candidates. The latest study by the National Science Foundation reveals that the typical (median) time to complete a Ph.D. in the U.S. across all fields is nearly six years.
Not a single field reported a median Ph.D. completion time shorter than five years. Under the new rules, if a student on a visa requires more than four years to complete their degree — as the vast majority of Ph.D. students do — they will need to apply directly to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for a formal “Extension of Stay.” This marks a pivot from the current provision known as “duration of status,” in which full-time students who are making appropriate progress, as determined by university officials, can continue their studies through to completion.
The shift would mean that government bureaucrats at USCIS, rather than academic advisers, will now have complete discretion over whether to grant extensions, according to (as yet) unknown criteria and procedures. This is the same agency that presently has a backlog of more than 11 million pending cases, and average processing times that stretch well beyond a year. Meanwhile, the nation’s Ph.D. programs include considerably higher proportions of international students than typical undergraduate programs do.
This means that advanced research efforts across the country, which depend upon doctoral students’ contributions, will be disproportionately affected. > The new requirements are certain to be disruptive for undergraduate students. Averaged across all fields in the U.S., one-third of Ph.D. recipients in 2024 pursued their graduate studies on student visas. The proportion of international students is higher in fields that the current and recent administrations have prioritized as essential for national competitiveness: computer and information science (58 percent), engineering (51 percent), mathematics and statistics (49 percent), and physical sciences (39 percent) — areas in which young innovators are advancing research on artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, materials science, and more.
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