Mai Listokin
NC State has seen a decline in the enrollment of international students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The University is home to 6,000 international students from 129 different countries.
International students are involved in research, student organizations, student employment on campus and more. According to Elizabeth James, director of the international services department, the decline in international students enrolling was a culmination of several factors.
“Some of it was political,” James said. “There was a lot of anti-immigration policies being introduced at the time and rising instances of xenophobia that contributed in this matter. But the pandemic in particular made things much more difficult for international students.Some of the issues international students had a hard time dealing with during the past two years included travel bans, limited visa appointments and availability and overall limitations on the number of international students allowed to enter the U.S.”
James said the delay in obtaining visas, lasting until September of 2020, resulted in many international students deferring until the spring of 2021. This led to both the class of 2020 and the incoming class of 2021 enrolling at the same time.
“In the fall of 2020, most of the international students that we had were transfers from other institutions already in the United States, so we only had less than 50 students from outside of the U.S. Normally, we would have 1200,” James said.
Siddharth Vikram, an international student from India pursuing a master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering, came to NC State in the fall of 2021. Vikram said applying to college in the U.S. was a long, difficult process. Due to the thousands of applicants attempting to study in the U.S. and limited timeslots, getting the required testing and interviewing done was a challenge.
“I was forced to travel 10,000 miles south of my home for the biometric exam and another 2,000 miles east for the interview,” Vikram said.
Venkata Punugu, an international student from India pursuing a master’s degree in industrial engineering, came to NC State in 2020. Pungu said he traveled two hours by bus to take the biometric exam and 14 hours by train for his interview.
“The interview in its entirety took only one minute,” Pungu said. “They asked four questions concerning why I want to attend university in the U.S., finances and what were my plans post-college. While waiting in line for the interview, I heard the man in front of me being rejected, it was very stressful.”
Punugu said he got a lot of support from the Office of International Services (OIS) at NC State.
“They were very responsive, holding Zoom meetings each week to answer questions about the application itself, COVID, vaccination policies, no matter how trivial they were very attentive and made the process much smoother,” Punugu said.
Danny Patino, an international student from Ecuador pursuing a master’s degree in poultry science, said his experience applying for college in the U.S. was fairly easy.
“I had very few issues throughout the whole process,” Patino said. “I received the documents from NC State quickly. The only issue was that I had to fly seven hours to the nearest open embassy in my country.”
Patino said he was lucky with how easy the process was. He said many of his friends from Ecuador who also applied to NC State faced challenges concerning forms and documentation.
“In general, just like a reminder is that we as international students could use the help [from OIS] when we are outside of the country,” Patino said. “By the time we arrive in the U.S, we need less assistance.”
With the rate of COVID-19 cases decreasing on campus, James said the enrollment rate of international students will continue being monitored.
“It remains to be seen whether the decline is a permanent trend, or if this is still pandemic related, so fall 2022 will be a really interesting semester for us to see and evaluate,” James said. “We actually had the largest number of new international students arrive in the following year of 2021.”