The United States has resumed granting visas to Chinese students before the coming autumn semester after the Covid-19 pandemic caused a lull in visa approvals.
Official data from the US State Department shows that the US began to increase its visa approvals for Chinese students in earnest in May, with its latest numbers of F1 visas – the most common type of student visa – reaching similar levels for those granted before the Covid-19 outbreak in late 2019.
The US granted 33,896 F1 visas to Chinese nationals in June, a significant increase from only 8 in June 2020 when US missions worldwide suspended routine visa services because of the pandemic. This year’s figure was at a similar level as the 34,001 visas granted in June 2019 before the pandemic.
Education consultants in China said there continued to be higher scrutiny for postgraduate students in certain hi-tech or strategic fields but that the US visa process for students has mostly “returned to normal”.
The resumption of visas comes ahead of the autumn semester for US colleges in September, and the strong number of applicants are a sign that Chinese students are still eager to head to the US after a dip in interest last year.
China is the largest source of international students in the US, with more than 380,000 active students in the country last year, but this was nearly 92,000 fewer than the year before, according to official US data. Along with students from India, the second biggest group, the two countries still made up 47 per cent of all international students in the US last year.
