By: Alex Ezat Parnia, President and CEO at Florida Coastal University
For many years, visa rejections have always been part of the experiences of international students trying to attend an American university. In fact, students from countries India, Nigeria and Bangladesh have been absorbing the costs of the visa rejection process without changing their application behaviors. The students who looked at the current state of the world, the processing delays, the OPT uncertainty, and the broader political climate around immigration quietly redirected their energy somewhere else entirely. The enrollment data tells the evidence of this redirection. There is also evidence of this in revenue projections of universities, and you can see the direction that students living in high-aspiration households in developing countries have taken in regards to the worth of a U.S. degree with respect to the cost of pursuing that degree.
Uncertainty around the US visa
There is no single clear path to ascertain that either the US Student Visa System is failing or working completely as designed.
However, cumulatively there are a number of factors at play which lead to uncertainty about whether continued investment in obtaining an American graduate degree is worth pursuing given: lengthy delays in processing times (in some cases extending beyond 12 months) for certain nationalities; mounting legal challenges to the currently viable (but still evolving) Optional Practical Training (OPT) / STEM OPT framework (as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic); reversion to uncertainty for the majority of applicants not being selected in the annual H-1B lottery; & a political climate where the overall rules affecting student visas appear to have changed (in terms of stability over the past 3 years).
For example, the student from Hyderabad or Lagos considering investment of 3-4 years and $100,000 (USD) in American graduate degree education will now be doing so under a different risk profile than that of their older sibling.
The rise of student interest in online degrees
The most noticeable change is the way the calculation is evolving. Online degrees from accredited institutions in the US and UK, which have historically been ranked second-tier for international students as recently as after the year 2019, are being given further consideration by students. This reconsideration is not sentimental. It has everything to do with how business and higher education are getting restructured. For example, a master’s degree from Georgia Tech, the University of Illinois or Northeastern (fully online) cost a fraction of an equivalent on-campus program, and they each carry the same institutional accreditation, and they do not require the student to obtain a visa or go through the uncertainty surrounding OPT-related issues (one of the biggest concerns of students coming to the US for their studies).
So for an international student who would like to be able to obtain the credentials from Georgia Tech, the University of Illinois or Northeastern, and obtain access to the list of alumni associated with that particular school, but would otherwise be financially or immigrationally deterred from relocating to the US for two years for their post-graduate education will no longer have to compromise on the mode of delivery for their education and are now formally able to choose to pursue their degree online.
For most of the last decade, the quality of credentials issue has been one of the major barriers to the acceptance of online degrees.
The Georgia Tech Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science has a track record of producing graduates who qualify for the same jobs at the same employers as the equivalent campus degree, typically costing one-fifth as much as the on-campus degree. The University of London’s Online Programs through different providers have received the same credibility from an institutional perspective in the job market that Oxbridge has received when it comes to brand name recognition. Also, Arizona State University’s Global Freshman Academy has shown that having access to a fully online pathway toward an undergraduate degree provides the same avenues for degree attainment as would a residential program.
Why students are preferring online degrees
The US Visa crisis has accelerated an already developing legitimacy shift by changing what the comparison point is for online degrees. The previous comparison point was an F-1 study, STEM OPT extensions and H-1B status for international students that provided a fairly smooth clearly defined pathway to permanent resident status in the US, which in many cases would overwhelmingly favour residential degrees. That pathway still exists, but it now has a risk premium that has increased dramatically enough to change the equation for a sizable segment of these students. When the comparison between a residential vs. online degree is now a 6 figure investment; a multi year immigration gamble; and a high likelihood of returning to the student’s home country with a debt burden and no way to gain employment in the US, then the online degree no longer appears to be just a concession to the native-born student; but, rather, a sound rational hedge against these risks.
Employers find online degrees credible
The employers who are paying the most attention to this change are the ones that will ultimately determine how it has an impact long-term. The technology sector has specifically built remote-first hiring frameworks in recent years where their approach didn’t include international recruiting; however, due to remote hiring being completely feasible for the technology sector now, they have created a large pool of qualified software engineers (and staff in general) from throughout the world that were not previously eligible to work in the United States because they could not provide evidence of eligibility under the current immigration system. For instance, today, a software engineer from Bangalore or Nairobi with a fully accredited college degree from a reputable university in the United States, experience with projects that can be proven, and a professional network built over time with other engineers through online groups and alumni programs can be hired by businesses in the United States when all that was previously required to be hired was to live in the United States.
The United States has spent 70 years developing the higher learning structure to be attractive to individuals from around the world. The issues with the United States’ immigration systems have now taught thousands of students to desire these traits differently than they did 70 years ago. Institutions and employers in the United States that have yet to adjust to these new desires from students will be at a disadvantage as thousands of students across the world search for jobs with employers and institutions in the United States.
