The trauma suffered by Indian students in the United States, and nearly 300,000 students face the threat of having to leave the country once their studies come over, which could affect India’s perception of Donald Trump’s United States. Hundreds of thousands of young people are reshaping their dreams of education in the United States due to canceling existing visas and rejecting new apps and viewing more stable destinations in the UK, Europe and Australia.
India has studied and continued to find a job in the United States and hopes to follow dozens of CEOs of Indian Origin, headed by major U.S. companies around the world and joining the growing list of dollar millionaires. Legal students in the United States are harassed either because they are seen as Palestinian sympathizers on social media or because they are subjected to minor violations such as traffic crimes through border control.
The Foreign Ministry realizes that dangerous students are being put at risk as the U.S. government destroys student groups and targets them at universities, cutting funding. Last year, more than one million foreign students attended U.S. colleges, accounting for 5.9% of the U.S. higher education population, with the largest share (3,32,000) from India, not China or South Korea. About half of the international students facing visa issues are from India.
With the likelihood of the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program route for staying on to find a job being shut and the Trump administration being bent upon taking on the universities as political revenge against the ‘woke’ liberals and the left, it does appear that America is being rapidly replaced as a destination for young Indians to work and live abroad while earning in dollar terms and enjoying the amenities of the first world.
The United States has always been an ideal destination for STEM students, and their society freely attracts international talent to fill in high-tech research and teaching work, even if the full tuition they pay makes the full tuition at American universities feasible. Furthermore, if the current troubles faced by Indian students do not end, the image of the United States will change among young people. Because, even in the wars initiated abroad and fought by the United States, in a wide range of globally unpopular bushes, the country still attracted Indians.
The Trump administration’s commitment at the poll time has led to a series of anti-immigration actions following mass deportations that have caused a huge insult to those sent away, including some incredibly harsh conditions in the El Salvador prison, which may have changed the image of the United States in the eyes of young globals. Starting in March 2024, international admission demand for U.S. universities fell by nearly 12% last year (among Indian students, that’s 28%).
However, as the U.S. president’s revenge attitude and actions towards Ivy League universities like Harvard, Princeton and Columbia show, the government doesn’t seem to care, which doesn’t care about the image, nor does international students invest nearly $44 billion in their U.S. economy last year and generated 3.78 million jobs last year. Students can even find other countries to receive their education, but will the United States care if it will become a loser?
