Student Union
Jilted Nepalese Students Still Looking for College Slots
Of 61 Nepalese students whose full scholarships to the University of Texas-Tyler were rescinded earlier this year after an "administrative error," 18 have not yet found places elsewhere.
"The window is closing. We might have a week left, for the United States at least," said Joan Liu, an adviser at United World College, an international high school in Singapore. "I think kids who have not been placed feel desperate."
In December, the students were invited to join the first class of "Presidential Fellows" at UTT and receive scholarships covering all their costs. Instead, four months after the students had accepted, paid fees and received the names of their roommates, UTT rescinded two-thirds of the scholarships in an "administrative error."
By that time in the admissions cycle, most of the students had declined offers from other schools because they had accepted UTT's offer.
Liu, with Brazil-based college counselor Emily Dobson and others, mobilized quickly after hearing of the students' plight in April. The educators used personal and professional connections to help the rejected students find other opportunities.
They spent hours online and on the phone seeking placements for the displaced students. Liu spearheaded the effort, working around the clock to help the students.
"Our favorite hashtag is '#Joangotobed, because it seems like she's up all the time," said Dobson.
'Best wishes'
Meanwhile, "UT-Tyler did nothing to help us except extend their best wishes, which means nothing at this crucial moment of our lives," said Rupesh Koirala, one of the foreign students. He will attend Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh to study software engineering.
Lucas Roebuck, a UTT spokesman, said the university did what it could.
"We've had people say, 'Hey you should make the funds magically appear,' " said Roebuck. "We took a hard look at our budget, and we went ahead and accommodated 30 [scholarships], which represents in terms of our international spending at least a tenfold increase over the previous year."
Time and funding are running out for the remaining students. The competition for each new spot that opens up is fierce. If a student is offered a place, there's no guarantee that he or she can afford to attend. The placed students cumulatively face about $60,000 in financial gaps.
Liu called the situation an "admissions Hunger Games 2.0," referring to the popular dystopian series in which teens are forced to kill each other for the entertainment of the upper classes.
"It's painful to watch," she said.
UT-Tyler wrote students that they were revoking scholarships because "the popularity of the program was far greater than expected."
"There weren't really appropriate checks and balances put in place for the unexpected demand that we received," said Roebuck.
Other schools, like the University of California-Irvine and Temple University in Philadelphia, have overextended offers in the past.
UC-Irvine rescinded nearly 500 acceptances because of overenrollment in 2017, citing missing paperwork or poor senior grades. In 2016, Temple faced a $22 million financial aid deficit because of an increase in qualifying students. But UC Irvine readmitted most students, and Temple covered the shortfall.
Hard to explain
"With all of the relationships we have with one another, and the national counseling associations, and the admissions meetings, you just don't do that. You wonder how something that big could slip through the cracks," Dobson said of the UT-Tyler situation.
"It was a budgetary oversight," said Roebuck.
"I don't think that they understand the level of pain, hurt, devastation, and jeopardy that they have put these kids into," Liu responded.
Some questioned whether UTT's reversal was politically motivated. While international students bring $36.9 billion to the U.S. economy, colleges and universities are hearing from domestic students and their families who question resources and slots going to foreign nationals.
For example, the University of California system last year capped the number of international students following an outcry from state parents and students.
"Let's take care of our people first before we start handing out to foreigners," Terry Wigley commented regarding a Texas Monthly story about the Nepalese students and UTT. "These colleges offer full ride programs for these foreigners only to educate them to return home and find ways to destroy our western civilization. (Iranians, Muslims, etc.)"
"After the oversight was recognized, it became an economic and political decision," Eddie West, director of international programs at the University of California-Berkeley Extension, said of UTT's decision. "The budget considerations were, 'We don't have these monies at our ready disposal,' whereas the political decision was, 'We can find those monies from elsewhere, or we can tell the Nepali students we can't follow through on our commitment.' "
No pushback
Roebuck denied that UTT's decision was politically motivated.
"There was no legislator, no regent, no one who came to us and said, 'You can't support that,' or, 'You shouldn't be giving scholarships out.' There was no one externally, or even internally, saying, 'We're anti-international.' It's just not there," he said.
Some of the students have been placed at institutions including the State University of New York's campus in South Korea and Texas Christian University.
Roman Shrestha is headed to the University of Denver. He didn't tell his parents about the roller-coaster ride until he accepted Denver's offer. They listened to him explain the heartbreak, the social media campaign waged by the students, and the "Hunger Games."
They asked him only one question, Shrestha said: "Is the University of Denver better than the University of Texas at Tyler?"
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Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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