Eastern Standard: September 17th, 2026

Welcome, Dr. Subbaswamy.

Great to be here.

So let's begin by making the rule understandable.

For an international student coming to the United States to pursue, let's say, a doctorate in engineering at the University of Kentucky, what changes on September 15th?

Up until this point, the student would have annual renewals, but it was not time limited.

In other words, for engineering nationally, the average time it takes to complete a doctorate is somewhere around five and a half years, but that's the median.

So many take a lot, half of them take longer than that.

They would basically be automatically, as long as they were making good progress, be assured of having that time to complete their study.

But now the new rule says that after four years, just before the end of the four years, they have to apply to the federal government for continued permission to stay and continue their study.

And there's no guarantee.

And also there's a fee associated with it.

And instead of that being a local decision, now it's going to be done federally, centrally.

And so it's very uncertain.

So let's imagine that you're leaving a country like India or China and making a commitment to come to this country to complete your study.

If there is no guarantee that you will be allowed, as long as you're making good progress, to complete your study, then you would really think twice or three times before you would make that commitment.

And so, yeah, it has very drastic consequences for international students who intend to study in the United States.

And for a graduate degree, four years is not long enough.

Simply not.

In fact, there's a study from the National Science Foundation that shows that particularly in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics fields, the average is more like 5.3 years.

But again, as I said, there are fields in which it's as long as six or seven years.

And so, no, the four years is simply no one actually completes it in four years.

Right.

As I understand it, this has not been unmonitored under the old system that goes away on September 15th.

As long as their school or sponsor confirmed that the student remained enrolled and was making satisfactory progress, there wasn't an arbitrary four-year deadline.

That's exactly correct.

Welcome, Dr. Subbaswamy.

Great to be here.

So let's begin by making the rule understandable.

For an international student coming to the United States to pursue, let's say, a doctorate in engineering at the University of Kentucky, what changes on September 15th?

Up until this point, the student would have annual renewals, but it was not time limited.

In other words, for engineering nationally, the average time it takes to complete a doctorate is somewhere around five and a half years, but that's the median.

So many take a lot, half of them take longer than that.

They would basically be automatically, as long as they were making good progress, be assured of having that time to complete their study.

But now the new rule says that after four years, just before the end of the four years, they have to apply to the federal government for continued permission to stay and continue their study.

And there's no guarantee.

And also there's a fee associated with it.

And instead of that being a local decision, now it's going to be done federally, centrally.

And so it's very uncertain.

So let's imagine that you're leaving a country like India or China and making a commitment to come to this country to complete your study.

If there is no guarantee that you will be allowed, as long as you're making good progress, to complete your study, then you would really think twice or three times before you would make that commitment.

And so, yeah, it has very drastic consequences for international students who intend to study in the United States.

And for a graduate degree, four years is not long enough.

Simply not.

In fact, there's a study from the National Science Foundation that shows that particularly in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics fields, the average is more like 5.3 years.

But again, as I said, there are fields in which it's as long as six or seven years.

And so, no, the four years is simply no one actually completes it in four years.

Right.

As I understand it, this has not been unmonitored under the old system that goes away on September 15th.

As long as their school or sponsor confirmed that the student remained enrolled and was making satisfactory progress, there wasn't an arbitrary four-year deadline.

That's exactly correct.