Latest news with #USuniversities
Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Times
British students hoping to study in US warned about online posts
Students applying to US universities should be extremely cautious on social media, experts have warned, amid reports of visas being rejected while immigration officials comb through posts. British sixth-formers accepted by US universities are reporting disruption in applications for student visas, which were suspended and then reinstated by President Trump. One consultant advised British school-leavers to consider starting degrees at branch campuses of American universities if visas were not processed in time. Applicants must now make their social media profiles public and officials have been ordered to scour through content dating back five years, meaning British students' posts from the age of 12 could be scrutinised for possible threats or 'hostile attitudes'. Education and legal experts said it reinforced the need for teenagers to be extremely cautious about what they post on social media. • I'm a Brit at Harvard — what Trump's doing is scary and dehumanising The US State Department says foreign nationals applying for student and exchange visitor visas should make their social media profiles public so it can comprehensively vet and identify visa applicants who 'pose a threat to US national security'. A federal judge has temporarily delayed issuing a ruling on whether the Trump administration can block international students bound for Harvard University from entering the country. Peter Adediran, digital media rights Solicitor at PAIL Solicitors, said that some students would self-censor or even not have social media, as a result. The measures risked infringing upon the right to freedom of speech enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and might also conflict with the Human Rights Act, he said. 'Students, being aware that sharing or being monitored for politically sensitive content may complicate their visa applications, are either not going to have social media accounts or will sensitise about what they discuss and post, which is extensive surveillance and a repression of international students,' he said. 'Intrusions into students' private lives could potentially lead to discrimination against international students due to their political beliefs or affiliations. 'Students should be removing any posts that could be deemed politically sensitive. Alternatively, they could have social media accounts that reflect a politically neutral position.' • Harvard can continue accepting foreign students, judge rules Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: 'Everyone should be constantly aware of the fact that anything you put on social media is there for ever, even if you delete it. It's depressing if something you think at the age of 16 can affect your life and career'. He added: 'Telling people to delete social media to get a place at university is completely contrary to what higher education is about: letting people speak freely. It's utterly perverse. If you can't make mistakes when you're young, when can you?' Robert, a British student at Yale is back in the UK for the summer working at a school and helping students with US applications for next year. He said the application process was already complex without the added visa problem. 'It's been tough for students and for universities who are getting updates about visa changes only at the same time as the media, then trying to figure out what the government is doing,' he added. 'We're in the dark, Yale students were concerned because of comments made by the US government about current visa holders so there's a feeling that everything is falling under investigation. 'For those applying this year, it's been bittersweet, getting a place is an amazing opportunity then, bam! You can't get a visa. It's nerve-racking.' David Feinburg runs an education consultancy in New York that gives advice to overseas students applying to US universities. He said some universities were advising students to start their degrees at branch campuses outside the US if their visas were not processed in time. Boston and North Eastern universities both have branches in the UK. 'My advice to students is to be very careful on social media,' he said. 'You always want to be careful anyway.' This was echoed by Iain Mansfield, a former Department for Education adviser and head of education at Policy Exchange think tank, who said: 'When you go on social media, whatever you put up is there to stay for a long time and can be seen by future employers. And now by those considering your visa. It's an important lesson for young people. 'This may be a bit of a lifeline for British universities which are an obvious alternative and are very highly regarded, without the extra hurdles for the US. Some British students who thought of going to the US will be staying local.'
Reuters
29-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
'Good days are over': Chinese students despair as US cracks down on visas
BEIJING, May 29 (Reuters) - Chinese students with offers from U.S. universities expressed despair after Washington promised to start "aggressively" revoking Chinese student visas and ordered U.S. missions abroad to stop scheduling new student visa appointments. If applied to a broad segment of the 277,000 Chinese students already at U.S. colleges, the move could disrupt a major source of income for universities and a crucial pipeline of talent for U.S. technology companies as the Trump administration pursues its hardline immigration agenda. "It's pretty absurd. It doesn't seem like something that should happen these days. I scrolled social media and felt quite anxious seeing other people's reactions," said Chen, 22, who has a postgraduate offer to study a humanities subject from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "Although my major is not sensitive, my visa application process hasn't started yet and my course begins in early August." Chen, who lives in the southwestern megacity of Chengdu, is prepared to defer her studies for a term if the visa doesn't come through in time. She preferred not to share her full name for privacy reasons. "If I really can't go to the U.S., I may take up an offer from the UK's London School of Economics," she said. Reuters reported that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio asked his department to pause the scheduling of student visa appointments until the department issues updated guidance on social media vetting of applicants. The news set off a wave of confusion and despair on China's Instagram-like platform RedNote, as incoming students scrambled to book the last remaining visa interview slots and others complained that they could no longer book. Wu said she stayed up until 3 a.m. on Wednesday frantically refreshing the webpage until she managed to snag a precious mid-June interview slot at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai. "At nearly midnight I saw the news and immediately started booking, the page crashed several times," she told Reuters. The 29-year-old biology student, who preferred not to share her full name for privacy reasons, has an offer from the University of Minnesota Duluth and no back-up plan if her visa is rejected. The cable, signed by Rubio, said previously scheduled appointments may proceed but did not specify when the interview booking system would resume. Nor did Rubio specify when the visa revocations would begin. "The Department's scheduling of nonimmigrant visa interview appointments is dynamic," a State Department spokesperson said in response to Reuters' questions about the suspension of appointments. "Visa applicants may continue to submit applications. Consular sections constantly adjust their schedules to allow for sufficient time to fully vet the cases before them." The spokesperson added that the Trump administration was focused on "upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process." The announcement comes at a critical period in the international student application process, as many young people prepare to travel to the U.S. in August to find accommodation and settle in before term starts. "I was super looking forward to starting my university life but then all this happened," said a Beijing high school senior with a media studies offer from Ohio State University, who declined to give her name for privacy reasons. "I still need 1-2 months to apply for my visa, term starts soon and I have no time left, it's really a disaster out of nowhere and really unfair to international students." In their posts on RedNote, a few Chinese social media users also reported additional scrutiny of their listed social media accounts from U.S. consular officials during visa interviews this week. In Beijing, the foreign ministry condemned the measures against Chinese students and said it had lodged protests with the U.S. "The U.S. side, using ideology and national security as an excuse, irrationally revoked Chinese international student visas," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a briefing on Thursday. "Its politically discriminatory practices pierce through the so-called freedom of speech it has always flaunted, this will only further damage its international image and reputation." China is also at the epicentre of Trump's global trade war that has roiled financial markets, upended supply chains and fuelled risks of a global economic downturn. The decision to cancel Chinese student visas is happening despite a recent pause in the U.S.-China trade dispute. International students - 54% of them from India and China - contributed more than $50 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. "It is superpower suicide to stop the best foreign minds from coming to the United States and using their talents to propel American prosperity and technological advantage," Rush Doshi, a former Biden administration China official and assistant professor at Georgetown University, wrote on X on Wednesday. "The iron fist has come down," wrote an anonymous Chinese PhD student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison on RedNote on Thursday. "The good days are over and a new round of hard times will begin for international students."
The Independent
28-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Trump's attack on Harvard is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for British universities
At last year's National Schools Regatta for junior rowers, the biggest queue was for the US universities tent. Overwhelmingly attended by the private schools, the event, held at Eton College 's Dorney Lake, draws a large crowd of parents, grandparents, relations, family friends as well as competitors. Striped blazers and crests are much in evidence. The racing on the water is fierce and compelling. Still, folks were interested in getting their loved ones into a top American college, possibly but not necessarily using their sporting prowess as a lever. As Oxbridge has become increasingly closed to the fee-payers in recent years, attention has turned across the Atlantic to America's prestige establishments. Every private school these days has someone devoted to advising on which US university to pick and how to navigate the application process. Fairs are held to promote their wares. They are packed with stands filled with representatives and experts on hand eager to impress parents anxious to learn more. This is why Donald Trump's onslaught against the universities, even if it proves to be temporary, has caused profound shock. Earlier this week, the department of homeland security moved to end Harvard's ability to enrol students from other countries, halting their visa applications, ostensibly to root out supposed 'woke' radicals. Trump said he would also be further cutting federal government contracts to the university, which has witnessed major pro-Palestinian protests on campus. At the very least, the president has signalled chaos and uncertainty ahead. Just as well-heeled families thought they had found a ready alternative to Oxford and Cambridge, that route may not be so guaranteed. Equally, his crackdown represents a golden opportunity for British higher education to step forward and fill the void. In the blinkered snobbishness that engulfs the independent sector and a few state schools, the ones that are selective and serve as middle-class magnets, only a handful of domestic universities after Oxbridge are worth a candle. Durham, St Andrews, Edinburgh, and some London colleges, they believe, are up there. After that, in the narrow eyes of parents, teachers and, sadly, brain-washed pupils – and, too often, employers – it quickly falls away. Members of the Russell Group, the self-appointed association that likes to think they come second following Oxbridge, may claim elitism but really, for many, they are that. Second division. As for the rest, they barely register. In 2023-24, the US hosted 1.1m overseas students, of which 10,000 hailed from Britain. That total generated $43.8bn through tuition, housing and living expenses, according to the organisation NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Some of that money is lost to the UK, not to mention the brains and talent, which may never return home, preferring to settle in the US. For America's universities, this business, for that is what it has become, is a lucrative money-spinner, a vital revenue-earner. This is a chance for Britain to restate its case, precisely at the point the supply of students from abroad and their higher fees is drying up. Competition is fierce – already China has said it is willing to take those who find their US entry barred. It's true that Britain's universities only have themselves to blame for this drain. Our colleges have grown crazily during the past few decades, and some bodies and the courses they offer do not pass muster. Likewise, though, we should not lose sight of the sheer prejudice that also works against them. Neither does it help that our government has targeted universities for spending cuts. Theirs is a largely battered, bruised and deeply demoralised sector. If they are going to raise their game, as they should to exploit this sudden opening the emboldened, belligerent US president has afforded them, they require financial support and a show of confidence from the centre. It should be a mutual partnership, one that operates to put Britain first, to dissuade students from heading overseas. The beneficiary here will be the economy. It will be to our national gain if they are encouraged to stay, to complete their education and with that, start their careers in the UK. There may be woe and doubtless tears in some quarters but by slamming shut one door Trump has opened another.
