23 July 2020
Some Singapore students studying in the United States have had their study plans disrupted due to new visa policies.
For example, graduate student Katherine Sumantri was recently informed by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that students taking courses which were fully online would no longer qualify for visas.
By then, Ms Sumantri had already booked her flight from Singapore back to the United States to start the second and final year of her speech-language pathology course at Teachers College, Columbia University.
This policy change effectively ended her previous visa exemption and also upended her study plans.
There were 4,632 students from Singapore studying in the US last year, according to figures from the Institute of International Education.
Some Singaporean students have turned to online chat groups to keep themselves and each other up to date with the latest news, swap tips on how to navigate America’s byzantine immigration system and commiserate.
One student said she was rethinking admission to a local university, while another said she could not transfer her credits to the university she wanted.