dotEDU: Higher Education Policy Explained
Jul 30, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 11 segments
Higher education is looking ahead to a busy fall, with midterm elections shaping the political landscape, an unfinished government funding process for FY 2027, and a wave of proposed rules working…
Sarah SpreitzerHost
Jon FansmithHost
Mushtaq GunjaHost
oh for sure and we're going to talk about it in just a second hey can we talk about duration of status oh first Okay, so Department of Homeland Security published their final rule on duration of status, I think, in mid-July, I think.
Sarah, you're going to tell me, but I think it's effective September 15th of this year.
I think some would say a seismic shift in how international students are admitted to the United States.
It affects how long they can stay, how they can extend their applications, how much this is all going to cost.
It had been proposed at the end of the first Trump administration and then never implemented, never finalized.
So duration of status is a student comes in, on an FRJ visa, and what has happened for the previous past decade, I think, is that you're allowed to stay as long as you're making sufficient academic progress in your education.
And so that means that you could come on a student visa and that you're staying to do your bachelor's.
Maybe you're going to start a master's after you finish that bachelor's or even all the way up to a PhD.
You may take advantage of optional practical training, which is considered part of your education after you complete your educational program.
And so what this final rule does is it is going to put a four year limit on a duration of status on your student visa.
And that's for an F1, which is usually what our undergraduates have, or a J1 visa, which is the visa that our graduate students usually have.
And I think for many international students, especially for graduate students, that four year time limit is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to make it work.
I worry about prospective undergraduate international students because they're making an enormous investment in their education.
They have to demonstrate that they can pay for all four years of their education.
By putting a four year limit on it, it means that they're not going to be able to take advantage of a study abroad program, a co-op program or even the optional practical training program what dhs has put in place is after the four years you have to ask for an extension of stay which would be a new process and we haven't seen how this is going to work but the examples that were given in the proposed rule were things like you get sick you're unable to take your final exams And so therefore, you're going to ask for two week extension of stay from DHS, not like a one year or a two year delay to finish your studies.
If you get to the end of the four years, even if you're not finished with your studies, you're going to have to leave the United States and reapply for a brand new visa.
This is also going to apply to our existing international students if they are not in the U.S. before September 15th.
oh for sure and we're going to talk about it in just a second hey can we talk about duration of status oh first Okay, so Department of Homeland Security published their final rule on duration of status, I think, in mid-July, I think.
Sarah, you're going to tell me, but I think it's effective September 15th of this year.
I think some would say a seismic shift in how international students are admitted to the United States.
It affects how long they can stay, how they can extend their applications, how much this is all going to cost.
It had been proposed at the end of the first Trump administration and then never implemented, never finalized.
So duration of status is a student comes in, on an FRJ visa, and what has happened for the previous past decade, I think, is that you're allowed to stay as long as you're making sufficient academic progress in your education.
And so that means that you could come on a student visa and that you're staying to do your bachelor's.
Maybe you're going to start a master's after you finish that bachelor's or even all the way up to a PhD.
You may take advantage of optional practical training, which is considered part of your education after you complete your educational program.
And so what this final rule does is it is going to put a four year limit on a duration of status on your student visa.
And that's for an F1, which is usually what our undergraduates have, or a J1 visa, which is the visa that our graduate students usually have.
And I think for many international students, especially for graduate students, that four year time limit is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to make it work.
I worry about prospective undergraduate international students because they're making an enormous investment in their education.
They have to demonstrate that they can pay for all four years of their education.
By putting a four year limit on it, it means that they're not going to be able to take advantage of a study abroad program, a co-op program or even the optional practical training program what dhs has put in place is after the four years you have to ask for an extension of stay which would be a new process and we haven't seen how this is going to work but the examples that were given in the proposed rule were things like you get sick you're unable to take your final exams And so therefore, you're going to ask for two week extension of stay from DHS, not like a one year or a two year delay to finish your studies.
If you get to the end of the four years, even if you're not finished with your studies, you're going to have to leave the United States and reapply for a brand new visa.
This is also going to apply to our existing international students if they are not in the U.S. before September 15th.
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