Does the American Dream Still Live On? No Restrictions on H-1B ‘for Now’

Sometime back the news on H1B created uncertainty about going to the US for higher Education about which we had done an update, that the US officials are saying, for now, the US is making no changes to the H1B visa policy. There are no ‘restrictions’ in place for the H-1B visa program but it is under ‘review. The official said around 70 percent of the visas issued under the H-1B category over the past nine months have gone to Indians and that a record 1.2 million visas of Indians were adjudicated by the US last year.

It might interest you that Indians are the largest group of H1-B recipients annually. The visas are aimed at foreign nationals in occupations and usually demands specialized knowledge such as science, engineering or computer programming. As per the US officials, the year-over-year increase in terms of issuance of H-1B visas and L1 visas (work permit) to Indians is six percent each.

In the previous year, the US has processed nearly 88,000 student visa applications with a hike of 15% in 2015. At present, nearly 1.6 lakh Indian students are studying in the US, which makes them the second highest number of international students, following China. Interestingly, this year there has been a jump of 25 percent in the number of Indian students who enrolled in the US colleges.

It still seems to be a right time to enter the US to achieve the study abroad dream.