Study Abroad News & Alerts

Sheffield University's management school is offering a scholarship worth £10,000 to students who want to pursue an MBA degree from the university. This is for students who will take admission in the September 2024 intake of the university. The scholarship will be awarded to meritorious students who have performed outstanding in their previous degrees and display a potential career graph.

Initially the application of the student will be assessed by the official committee members of the student will also have to go through a personal interview round before being finally selected. Students will not have to fill any separate scholarship application form for the scholarship. If you get accepted by the university for an MBA program, then your application will be automatically considered for the scholarship.

The United States of America was planning to increase the fee for H1B visa in the beginning of 2023. But due to mass objection, the plan was dropped. Now the United States of America is planning to implement this visa fee hike from the beginning of 2024. It is being said that the fee for H1B visa will likely rise by 2000%. The E registration fee for H1B visa is currently at US$10. It is likely to become US$215 by the beginning of 2024. This is a massive increase and will be a significant change for international students who want to study in the US.

The USCIS, which is the agency responsible for managing H1B visas in the US, has said that visa fee registration is the primary source of funding for the agency. 96% of the total funds are accumulated with the help of this source. The pandemic had already dented this revenue source and now the country wants to make up for all the loss. The increase in the registration fee will generate an extra US$1.9 billion that will help in taking the necessary measures to streamline the process of visa application and registration.

Australia has witnessed the highest immigration rate in the past few years with the number of international students crossing five lakh students per year. Australia is planning to cut the immigration rate by 50%. Australia will be imposing  stricter visa norms on international students from 2024 onwards. The minimum English proficiency requirement will be increased to make sure that genuine students who are capable of building a strong future in the country migrate to Australia. Not only does Australia have a high number of international students who came to the country in 2023, but previous students have also been increasing their stay by applying for different kinds of visa.

 The new plan is to invite only 2,50,000 students by next year which will be a dramatic cut in the number of students coming to the country as compared to last year. The country will also make sure that students are no longer involved in visa hopping, which is the process by which students extend their stay in the country while working as unskilled labours and doing  small jobs.

Considering the growing demand for the UK student and work visa, VFS will be opening visa processing centres in different tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India. Currently the number of processing centres in India is just limited to metropolitan and tier 1 cities. As a result, students have to travel long distances to just apply for the UK visa. But introducing multiple visa processing centres, immigration to the UK will become much more accessible to people from different parts of the country

These new visa processing centres will most likely be opened in cities like Calicut, Indore, Bhubaneswar, and Dehradun. There is a growing demand among Indian nationals not just for work and student visas for the UK but the number of applications for a visitor visa has also been increased. Considering the growing interest of Indian nationals to visit the UK, this decision has been taken by VFS.

The United States of America has recently announced its plan for introducing a digital Visa very soon. The aim of this project is to save time with the immigration department and the applicant has all the process can be carried out digitally. Candidates can simply submit their documents and wait for approval. Meanwhile, the officials will check the documents of the applicant and if everything is genuine then the candidate will be shortlisted for the interview. It is important for people to know that the digital Visa is not the same as the E visa. Although the project of Digital Visa will be mostly paperless, and will not require the presence of the candidate offline for the most part, candidates will still have to appear for the interview. and it is on the other hand is totally done digitally which is why the US is not calling this project an E visa. This project is likely to launch within 18 months of the announcement. Initially it will be launched at the smaller level to check its performance. 

Australia will be making it very difficult for non-genuine students to migrate to the country by introducing a lot of new laws for international students. The minimum financial requirement that a student will need to show is going to rise by 17% and become AU$24,405. It is also being said that Australia might introduce a new law under which the number of years that students can stay in the country after completing their education will also be reduced.

Earlier, Australia had also released its roadmap to crack down on authentic education providers that send international students to low quality education institutes to earn lots of money. Australia will be monitoring the attendance of students to make sure that any person coming under the student visa category is fulfilling the purpose of the visit. The process of short-term graduating visas will also be simplified and strengthened.

Recently the students and the professionals working in the UK have expressed their concern about the lack of clarity regarding the new visa regulations that will be imposed on immigrants. The cohort of Indian immigrants are feeling that these crackdown policies are quite unfair. The group of Indian immigrants is going to write to the Home Secretary very soon to seek clarification. The most recent regulation that has been introduced by the UK government is the minimum income requirement that a person needs to bring a family member to the country. This has been raised to £38,700, which is actually a lot for someone who is recently shifting to the UK and starting to earn. A large number of medical professionals including nurses migrate from India to the UK for a better life. They also bring their families along themselves and if this regulation is imposed then the number of nurses coming from India to the UK will be nil.

Canada will be implementing a series of changes for students who want to come to Canada for higher education. Most of these changes will be implemented from the beginning of 2024 or sometime after. Let's have a look at all these changes that students can expect.

1. The minimum financial requirements for cost of living has been raised by Canada from C$10,000 to C$20,635. This is to ensure that international students coming to Canada have the financial means to complete their education comfortably in the country.
2. International students who have already applied for a study permit for Canada, by 7th December, 2023, will be able to work for more than 20 hours a week till 30th April, 2024.
3. If you choose to pursue a portion of your post graduate studies through online classes, then it will be counted in your credits as long as 50% of the cost has been done offline.
4. A temporary policy will also be introduced for people whose post graduate work permit is expiring before 31st December, 2023. An additional 18 months will be provided to the people to look for a suitable job opportunity in Canada.

The University of Sheffield is inviting international students for its international postgraduate scholarship.

For students in the field of arts and humanities, the scholarship is worth £2000 and for the students who are pursuing any program in the field of engineering and technology, the scholarship is worth £2500. Also the best part about the scholarship is that you do not need to submit any scholarship form separately. If you are accepted in the university, then the officials will automatically go to your documents and select you if you are considered as a worthy candidate for the scholarship. Also the scholarship will only be provided in the form of tuition fee reduction.

The scholarship is for students who have applied for a program in the 2024 intake of the university. It is only for masters level programmes and not applicable for undergraduate or research degrees.

Tuition fees are one of the biggest concerns for international students while selecting a university. Canada is one of the most preferred study abroad destinations for international students. Currently more than three lakh Indian students are studying in various Canadian universities. Let's take a look at some of the most affordable universities in Canada for international students.

1. University of Alberta

This is an excellent option for students who want to pursue their education from renowned universities, but don't want to spend a lot of money on tuition fees. On an average you can expect to spend C$2500 to 4500 C$ per semester.

2. University of Northern British Columbia

University of Northern British Columbia is another great university. If you want to pursue your education from a top notch Institute. You can expect to spend C$11,000-C$13,000 per annum to study at this university.

3. University of Winnipeg

University of Winnipeg is also among the most affordable universities in Canada . The average tuition fee here is C$14,000 to C$24,000 depending upon the courses.

4. University of Ottawa

University of Ottawa is a global hub and currently has more than 30,000 students from around the world. The tuition fee here is somewhere between C$20,000 to C$35,000 depending upon the courses. Also, the university is very generous when it comes to giving scholarships.

Canada is all set to double the financial requirements for cost of living for students who want to come to the country. From next year onwards, prospective students will need to show at least C$20,635 in their account instead of C$10,000 which was the previous requirement. This decision has been taken keeping in mind the rising house rents in Canada. More than 3,19,000 students from India went to Canada for higher education in 2023. India is among the top five countries to send students to study in Canada. 

The financial requirement has been raised to make sure that students are comfortably able to find an accommodation for themselves and continue with studies. Students come with inadequate funds only to find that everything is extremely expensive. By raising the minimum requirement for international students, Canada wants to promote a most secure life for international students in the country.

In January 2023, the immigration department of the US had proposed a long document containing a proposal regarding increasing the visa fee for immigrants wanting to come to the US. At that time the proposal received a lot of backlash due to which it was postponed. Now the US government is planning to implement the visa fee hike from the beginning of 2024. The visa fee hike can range from 70% to 2050% depending upon the visa category. Although nothing is confirmed as of yet, there is a high probability that immigrants will witness a significant hike in the visa fee. 

The current visa fee for various US visas has been the same since 2016. The government has been looking to increase the visa fee from the past couple of years but could not due to the pandemic and its after effects. Now that everything is normal and the immigration process has become more streamlined, the US government will most likely introduce the new proposal by the beginning of 2024.

The University Grants Commission has officially released the guidelines for short-term skill courses that will be taught in Indian universities. The guidelines have been prepared keeping the New Education Policy 2020 in mind. These guidelines have been prepared to provide a common framework to all higher education institutions in the country that want to offer short-term skill courses. The short-term skill courses will teach one or the other skill to students that will make them employment ready.

This will give opportunities to students with gaps in their education as well. The purpose of short-term skill courses should be to provide holistic education to students in a brief period of time. Practical training and giving hands-on experience is the core of these courses that should be taken care of by the institutes. any individual who has cleared their class 12th from a recognised institute in the country will be eligible for these courses.

Delhi University has officially started the second phase for PhD admissions in various departments of the university. Phase 2 will be concluded on 20th December, 2023. Candidates can register themselves on the official website of Delhi University. The registration started on 5th December and will go on for 15 more days. Candidates will have to submit all the necessary documents. Upon being shortlisted, the last date to pay the tuition fees is 31st January, 2024. Candidates who had applied for the phase 1 already will need to refresh their application to be considered for getting selected.

You can find the registration link on the homepage of Delhi University. To know more about the registration process, you can also read the official prospectus of Delhi University.

The projected expenditure of Indian students who studied abroad in 2022 was $47 billion. This included the overall expenses including tuition fees, accommodation and travelling. This expenditure will grow up to $70 billion by 2025. This is because the number of students going to study abroad from India is likely to increase in the coming years. As per this report the top most study abroad destinations for Indian students are the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States of America.

In 2024, more than 850,000 students went to study abroad in these four countries. Indian students spent $34 billion just in the UK. The expenditure is majorly incurred by students on tuition fees, accommodation and living expenses

CISCE has officially released the date sheet for class 10th and 12th board exams 2024. ICSE will conduct the class 10th exams from 21st February to 28th March, 2024. The class 12th exams will be organised from 12th February to 3rd April, 2024. Students will be given 15 extra minutes to read the question paper and will get five minutes to be seated in the examination hall.

To download the date sheet all you have to do is go to the official website of ICSE and click on the direct links for class 10th and 12th exam 2024 timetable on the homepage. After clicking on the links, the PDF file will open on your computer screen. You can download and save it for your future reference.

The QS World University Rankings for Sustainability, 2024 features 1397 institutions from 95 different countries and territories. This is double the number as compared to the previous year. The University of Toronto has been officially named as the most sustainable university of the year. The second position is the University of California, Berkeley, and the third is the University of Manchester. 56 universities from India have been ranked by QS out of which none is among the top hundred. 

The University of Delhi has got the highest rank among Indian universities and stands at 220th position globally. This is the 30th position among Asian universities. IIT Bombay is at the next position and ranks 303 after which comes IIT Madras at 334. The United States of America is the most represented country on the list with more than 209 universities, featuring and one being in the top 10. The United Kingdom is the second most featured country with 93 institutions in the list. 

New Zealand will now be accepting the IELTS one skill retake option to give work and student visas to people who want to migrate to the country. This option allows the test taker to meet their target score by taking any of the four skills in the test again without having to take the full exam again. Immigration department of New Zealand has taken this decision after finding the one skill retake option reliable for evaluating the English proficiency of a person. This will also save a lot of money for immigrants as they do not have to take the whole test again.

At present more than 900 entities are accepting the IELTS One skill retake option to give visas to immigrants. Test takers have the flexibility to choose between their original or the revised IELTS score to submit the desirable score.

A total of 1570 students have benefited from the MPhil and PhD OBC scholarship provided by the government of India. Students from Uttar Pradesh stand at the top with the highest number of beneficiaries at 325 students. The second position is Kerala with 120 students. 114 students have been selected from West Bengal followed by 97 students from Bihar. Last year 1338 students benefited from the same scholarship. The government has been increasing the number of scholarships granted to OBC students to pursue research degrees like PhD and MPhil. 

In order to ensure the timely release of funds, CNA looks after everything and students are given stipends timely. The scholarship was started back in 2014 and since then has helped thousands of students in completing their higher education.

The United Kingdom is one of the most preferred study abroad destinations for international students. Recently the government of the UK has imposed a lot of restrictions on student and work visas. This is to control the over immigration in the country and only focus on quality individuals who can enhance the economy. The minimum income to support a dependent in the country has been raised to £38,700 annually. The minimum income criteria has remained the same since 2012 and this is the first time such a significant step has been taken.

 Many students in India move to the UK with the plan of taking their families with themselves and many people migrate to the UK with the plans of making their children or dependents study in the top universities of the UK. This will disturb the overall migration scenario among Indian students and families. People who have already completed their study in the UK and are now working are concerned even more about this latest visa restriction. This will prevent a lot of people from bringing their family members to the UK.