‘Indian student enrolment in US institutions drops by 6.9pc’
New Delhi: Over 3.5 lakh Indian students are pursuing various educational programmes ranging from primary schooling to university courses in the US as of February 2026, which is a decline of around 6.9 per cent from the corresponding figure the previous year, the Parliament was informed.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) was asked in the Rajya Sabha, upper house of Indian parliament, whether Indian student enrolments in the US have dropped, and to what extent “scarce visa slots” and “high percentage of rejections of visas” are contributing to it.
In a written reply to the query, the Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh shared with the Rajya Sabha some data released by the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) Mapping Tool of the US Department of Homeland Security.
He said according to the data, the total number of Indian students pursuing various educational programs (primary, secondary, other vocational, high school, language training, flight school, associate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate, and others) in the United States of America stands at February, 2025: 378,787 students and February 2026: 352,644 students.
The figure indicates a decline of around 6.9 per cent in overall student enrolments in US academic institutions, he added. KMS—12A
