There’s a lot of uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic for international students planning to attend U.S. colleges and universities this Fall.

Numerous students already in the United States chose to forgo returning home for Summer break due to lack of flights and general questions surrounding their ability to return and start the Fall semester. New international students hoping to start in August face bureaucratic hurdles as well.

The novel coronavirus pandemic and its impacts are leading many higher education associations to project a 25 percent drop in international student enrollment in Fall ’20. That compounds an over 10 percent national decline between Fall 2015 and Spring 2019 reported by the Institute of International Education.

At Kansas State University, the percentage and number of enrolled international students has dropped relatively steadily in the last decade after peaking in the 2014-2015 school year. In Fall 2009, enrolled international students numbered 1717 of the 23,581 person student body, or 7.28 percent. Enrollment reached a numerical height in Fall 2014 with 2,247 enrolled international students at 9.07 percent of the student body and a percentage height in Spring 2015 with 2,190 enrolled international students at 9.46 percent of the enrolled student body.

That number has since dropped as of Fall 2019 to 1,471 enrolled international students out of a 21,719 person student body, or 6.77 percent. Full enrollment numbers are not listed online by K-State for last semester, but international enrollment shrank again to 1,358 in Spring 2020. These figures do not include non-enrolled special international programs.

After K-State and universities nationwide shut-down as the pandemic began to hit U.S. population centers and a recent local case spike, KSU administration has opted to move Fall’s start and end dates up one week and have students not return to on-campus activity after Thanksgiving break. The final week of instruction and final exams would be conducted online.

But that move has caused some headaches for prospective international students like Uyên Diệp of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. She says she’s had her paperwork in to receive her visa since April, but the U.S. Consulate has not resumed work on those applications.

“The arrival date for international students moved to 29 July since we have to comply with 2 week self-quarantine rule,” says Uyên. “Which means I just have around 20 days to travel to the U.S. and it’s kind of impossible for me.

“I think not only me, but other new international students are facing uncertainty everyday. We cannot forecast what will happen in this unprecedented situation.”

Uyên compares the last 3 months to being in limbo, though notes that university officials have been prompt with providing guidance to help her through the situation.

Vedant Kulkarni is the Student Governing Association’s International Affairs Director. He says moving the semester was the final nail in the coffins of numerous international students’ aspirations to attend in the Fall, saying wait times for visas in nations that are still processing them can take months.

“That’s the biggest worry,” says Kulkarni. “Even in this pandemic, the flight rates are now again starting to be extremely expensive and, like I said, the flights are just not available — there’s too many restrictions.

“And some students are worried about their families, how to leave their families in this pandemic or how their families will be able to pay the tuition fees in these pandemics because economics everywhere has been hurt pretty badly. And, you know, the dollar’s exchange rate is increasing against every other currency.”

Kulkarni says that’s making the prospect of paying tuition and fees more onerous as well, especially for those who have been out of work. He says earlier planning by administration could have helped clear the situation up for international students sooner, though acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.

“Everyone was going with the optimism of in-person starting perfect and everything with the pandemic going down,” says Kulkarni. “But as we can see that has not happened, restrictions are still up everywhere.”

Kulkarni studies in the College of Business and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He says those departments have been good about providing online and hybrid plans for the semester, but overall called for administration to include international student voices in future decisions.

“The best option would be the ISSS collaborating with the Global Campus and giving the option of international student to do one semester or one year online from their home countries and then providing them the option of traveling depending on how the situation goes in the future.

“But making sure that there is some back-up plan in there as well and ensuring that international students are kept updated about what’s happening via email, social media posts […] so they are not panicking over there.”

It was a couple weeks after speaking with Kulkarni that I was able to schedule an interview with Associate Provost for International Programs Grant Chapman. In that time, changes with the Student and Exchange Visitor Program would require international students enrolled in universities that have moved fully online to leave the country.

Chapman confirmed that as K-State is planning to conduct in-person and hybrid instruction, the new guidance should not impact K-State’s international student population. There still remains questions surrounding what impact a move to online courses pre or mid-semester would have.

“If we would have to make such a decision, one factor would be to look at our international student population and look for guidance from the Student and Exchange Visitor Program on that matter,” he says. “In the current guidelines, there’s some ambiguity on those kinds of things.”

International students enrolled in colleges moving to hybrid instruction models will also be permitted to take more than the usual single online course allowed under visa rules.

Chapman further acknowledged the difficult situation international students face, including with the decision to move the semester up to prevent viral spread. He says their road to K-State is tough even without COVID-19 restrictions and looks to do whatever they can to allow them to attend.

“I admire all the students […] who can get here,” says Chapman. “We are working and have been working for a few weeks and months on trying to assist as best we can through the various rules — including the travel and visa — students to get here on time, students with the ability to go through all these challenges and get here.”

Chapman says international students have both options of taking online courses and deferring enrollment for a period of time, though says those discussions are done on case-by-case bases with academic advisers who can inform students on more of their options.

I reached out to Journalism and Mass Communications School Director Dr. Steve Smethers, he oversees the department in which Uyên had planned to start. He says the JMC is in the process to be the first undergraduate program to offer its entire curriculum online.

“We want to be able to reach a whole new market of K-State students that way,” Smethers says. “It would be possible for students to be able to get some of the courses they need through Global Campus. The disadvantage is that they have to pay more money for a Global Campus class, but the advantage is they don’t have all the money tied up in room and board and the various other expenses that they would have if they were taking classes [in-person].

“So either way, Journalism at least is going to be there with classes that people need to be able to take.”

Smethers says the situation might not be pretty, but they’re working to provide some sort of normalcy amid abnormal times for education. He also adds that faculty have been working throughout the Summer to improve their online teaching skills, adding he hopes international students on the outside can find a way to return to Manhattan soon.

Uyên, unable to make it in Fall, was able to defer her enrollment in the immediate. Intending on entering the graduate program, she says she was also able to work with Smethers and the JMC to maintain her graduate teaching assistantship as well.

“Frankly, my life in Vietnam is not affected much. I am still a media correspondent for my newspaper, though I just changed my contract since I think that I was starting in the States in the Fall semester so now I have to change it back. However, it does affect my friend in the U.S who I planned to share a house with.

“I’m also concern that if I come for Spring semester, there are many advanced modules that I will struggle with since I did not study the basic ones in Fall — but hopefully everything will be fine.”

Other students, though, Smethers says may not have that opportunity again.

The post KSU international students adjusting to semester changes appeared first on News Radio KMAN.

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