Most mornings, Rohan Purohit wakes before dawn in his shared apartment near a New York City campus. He juggles coursework, a research assistantship, and the quiet pressure of being nearly 13,000 kilometres from home. A graduate student from Mumbai, Rohan came to the U.S. seeking a world-class education and a path to professional success. Lately, that sense of hope is shrinking.
Conversations with fellow international students drift from deadlines to visa delays, rescinded scholarships, financial struggles, a saturated job market, and the shrinking margin of error. “You brace yourself for homesickness, social adjustment and a competitive job market,” he says. “But the looming fear of losing everything overnight wears you down.”
For many Indian students like Rohan, the American dream is now more fragile than they were led to believe. This fragility isn’t just personal—it’s political. The uncertainty shaping their lives stems not only from circumstance but from deliberate policy decisions.
Often misunderstood as a Trump-era phenomenon, the immigration squeeze on international students predates his presidency. For years, students have walked a tightrope, navigating complex visa categories, costly and bureaucratic status changes, and the constant threat of deportation over minor clerical errors. The long-standing Republican “America First” policy, revived under Trump, didn’t create this system—it intensifies it.
When Trump returned to the White House in early 2025, his administration’s first blow to international students came through a quiet bureaucratic shift. In April, over 1,800 F-1 and J-1 student visas were abruptly revoked—without warning or explanation. Nearly half were Indian nationals, now the largest group of international students in the U.S. According to SEVIS, the Homeland Security portal tracking foreign students and visitors, Indians made up 27% of the international student population in 2024. Inside Higher Ed reported that fewer than 2% of the Indian students affected had any known ties to campus activism.
More than 300,000 Indian students currently study at American universities, contributing over $8 billion annually to tuition and local economies (IIE Open Doors Report 2024). According to NAFSA, a global nonprofit for international education and exchange, in 2023 alone, international students added more than $50 billion to the U.S. economy, including $43.8 billion exclusively on education. Yet, despite their significant economic contributions, the administration remains unmoved by the human toll.
Until recently, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) maintained a neutral stance: “When foreign nationals come into India, they abide by our laws and customs, and similarly, we expect that when Indian nationals are abroad, they must also comply with local laws and regulations.” But this stance has now shifted. The MEA has, for the first time, “raised concerns” over the treatment of Indian students in the U.S.—a reflection of long-simmering frustrations brought into focus by Trump’s return. This article examines whether India’s strategic investment in U.S. education is beginning to yield diminishing returns.
Visa shockwaves: Inside Executive Order 14161
At the centre was Executive Order 14161, titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security Threats,” signed by Trump in January 2025. It expanded vetting procedures, enabling a “catch and revoke” system via the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). Minor infractions—traffic tickets, underage drinking triggered status cancellations. Panic and confusion followed.
An Indian master’s student in Atlanta, speaking anonymously, said her friend’s F-1 visa was revoked without a clear explanation. “He’s fighting the decision in court now…but the stress is overwhelming,” she said. “It made me feel lesser than others just because of my visa status.”
This limbo affects not just current students but those on Optional Practical Training (OPT)—a program allowing graduates to work for up to three years while awaiting longer-term visas. According to the IIE Open Doors Report 2024, around 240,000 foreign nationals are in the U.S. on OPT. Another half a million are pursuing graduate degrees, while over 340,000 are enrolled in undergraduate programs. At least 28 lawsuits have been filed, leading to some visa reinstatements. But the crackdown reveals a deeper issue: exclusion disguised as security.
Foreign students are increasingly cast as threats. Stephen Miller, a Trump advisor, once said, “We cannot have a policy in America where every citizen… has to compete with all of planet Earth.” This mindset turns global academic exchange into a zero-sum game—cultural gatekeeping under legal guise. Yet, international students, especially in STEM fields, are pillars of U.S. research. Undermining them chips away at the academic excellence America once championed.
When funding becomes a weapon
The Trump administration cited Executive Order 13899 (December 2019), which broadened Title VI of the Civil Rights Act under new antisemitism guidelines, giving the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) power to investigate and pressure universities. This led to massive funding cuts—forcing over 50 institutions to make hard choices.
Columbia University, faced a harsh OCR report, and was forced to adjust its Middle East programs among other things. Harvard, among others, resisted demands to dismantle diversity initiatives, alter admissions, or police curricula for ideological bias. The battle escalated when the government threatened to revoke its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, halting the admission of international students. A federal judge paused that threat with an injunction.
By wielding funding as leverage, the administration recast international students as pawns in a broader battle over academic and institutional freedom. Graduate and doctoral research in the U.S. depends heavily on international students, many of whom rely on fragile funding ecosystems and campus employment.
One student from Odisha, after two years of applications, got into Harvard’s prestigious Master’s in Public Administration in International Development program. “The long-run returns are immense,” he explained. “Even if I had to take a loan, I was prepared…But without a university scholarship, a co-signer or collateral, I could barely put together INR 50 lakh, and that still wasn’t enough.” Harvard granted him a deferral, but the broader trend is clear: scholarships—once lifelines—are disappearing amid funding and geopolitical turbulence.
The illusion of opportunity
“The U.S. is still seen as the pinnacle of higher education,” says Ananya Sachdev, founder of UniDiscovery, an education consulting firm. “But perceptions have shifted. Visa delays, political unpredictability, and stories of student layoffs are making parents more cautious.”
It is a paradox: while enrolment numbers remain high, the pathway from graduation to employment is fraught with risk. One student, after earning a master’s in international business in 2022, landed a job only to be laid off six months later. With just 90 days of permitted unemployment under OPT rules, she began volunteering to buy time. When another job came through just before her OPT expired, she was forced to spend INR 13 lakh (approximately $15,000) on a Curricular Practical Training (CPT) program to stay eligible for the H-1B lottery. A year later, days before the draw, she was laid off again and had to return to India.
OPT, the main bridge to U.S. employment, is riddled with hurdles: a 90-day limit on unemployment, six-month processing times, and low job prospects. The longer-term H-1B visa—capped at 85,000 per year—is awarded via a lottery. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in 2024, the odds were around 24%.
But even before the lottery, many students do not make it past the interview stage. One Ivy League graduate attended over 30 job interviews, reaching the final round in four, but was rejected each time due to visa sponsorship requirements. Sponsorship is costly, complex, and risky—especially in a job market plagued by layoffs.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in March 2025, 5.8% of U.S. college graduates were unemployed (up from 4.6% in 2024); underemployment was around 41%, working jobs that didn’t need their degrees (slightly higher than in 2024 at 40.6%). According to layoffs.fyi, 542 companies cut over 1,50,000 jobs in 2024. For visa holders, these aren’t just career setbacks—they can lead to deportation.
What the future holds
The outlook for 2025 is grim. In March, Congress introduced the Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act (H.R. 2315)—a bill proposing to eliminate the OPT program. Since May, enforcement of OPT rules have tightened: incomplete employer information or exceeding unemployment limits can now erase SEVIS records and trigger deportation. Financial burdens are mounting. H-1B premium processing fees now exceed $2,800; lottery registration costs rose to $215 earlier this year. Meanwhile, stricter enforcement measures make visa approvals harder to secure.
Families investing crores in U.S. education now face a volatile landscape where policies can change at any minute. “We now encourage students to consider backup options, such as Germany and Australia, even if the dream is still America,” the education consultant says. “It’s not just about ambition anymore; it’s about managing expectations.”
Interestingly, in an article for the Association of American Universities (AAU), Professor Chris R. Glass, citing data from SEVIS, highlighted a sharp 28% decline in Indian student enrolment between March 2024 and March 2025. Although such a decline is yet to be understood following future patterns, it does highlight the shifting perceptions toward a U.S. degree.
The American dream doesn’t just dim, now it flickers weakly under policy pressure. What was once a clear path—from degree to job to green card—is now a fragmented puzzle. The U.S. still holds allure, but no longer unconditional trust. In 2025, Indian students aren’t just applying to schools—they’re reading immigration tea leaves. The prestige of a U.S. degree remains, but many families now weigh it against a single, pressing question: Is it worth it?
