US State Department has revealed changes in policy that will impact foreign students entering the US.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced during the National Association of other Student Advisers (NAFSA) in Washington that they had streamlined the visa application process for students from other nations, including Kenya, who want to pursue higher education overseas.

According to him, applicants won’t need to participate in an interview to complete their application.

This adjustment is a significant deviation from the standard procedures, which at first required an interview.

The Department also extended the window in which a Visa application may be submitted, bringing it from 120 days to a full year.

Blinken stressed the significance of forging alliances with other nations when discussing visa reforms in order to provide students with additional opportunities  options to study abroad.

He applauded organizations like NAFSA for helping students seize opportunities and for organizing student exchanges.

“At the State Department, we are working to expand international education. After the acute phase of the pandemic ended, more and more international students began applying to study in the US again. We took steps to streamline our visa process and make it easier for students to apply,” he said.

M Square Media’s CEO, Raghwa Gopal, applauded the US government for taking action to expand international study programs. Gopal asserted that by giving students the skills they would need for future international engagements, the short-term educational courses would be advantageous to the students.

Foreign students can enter a recognized college, university, high school, or other educational program in the US under the academic student program.

Foreign students must be admitted by a school that has received formal US government recognition, and the program must result in a certification, certificate, or degree.

After a popular outcry, the deadline for the hike in worldwide visa fees was postponed from the originally announced date of May 30 to June 17; some applicants will now have to pay up to Sh42,000 to obtain the travel document.

Business and tourist visas (category B1/B2S), student visas (F), and exchange visitor visas (J) are the categories that would see a rise, going from Sh21,800 ($160) to Sh25,206 ($185) visas for temporary workers (H, L, O, P, Q, and R categories) will cost Sh27,941 ($205) from Sh25,897 ($190).

The US Embassy in Nairobi stated that they acknowledge the critical role that international travel plays in the US economy and pointed out that President Joe Biden’s foreign policy places a high priority on granting visas, particularly for work and tourism. They insisted that the fees are only intended to cover the costs of providing the consular services.

The cost of non-immigrant visas hasn’t gone up since 2014, so this is a big deal.

Following the suspension of the process in 2020 as part of the safety measures established at the height of the Covid-19 outbreak, the embassy has been dealing with a massive backlog of visa interviews.

The Embassy shortened the wait time for visa interviews for Kenyan visitors last month and permitted renewal of some categories without going through an interview physical appointments.

On Tuesday evening, a portion of a dormitory at Ebunangwe Boy’s Secondary School in Vihiga County caught fire.

Billy Maloba, a witness to the incident, estimates that the fire started at 8 o’clock.

“No one was injured in the accident since it happened when the students were doing their night preps in class,” he said.

Ebunangwe is a mixed boarding and day school.

The school has only one dormitory.

“It was raining around that time so it took a while for people to notice the fire,” Maloba, who said he lives a few metres from the school, said.

He claimed that once the fire was put out by the locals, the Vihiga fire department arrived.

Since property with an unknown value was destroyed, the cause of the fire has not yet been identified.

By the time of publication, the school still had not released a statement regarding the incident.

According to the most recent rankings published today by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), the University of Nairobi is the only university in Kenya classified among the top 2,000 universities worldwide.

The leading institution in Kenya is in the top 7% of universities worldwide after being ranked 1,425th on the Global 2000 ranking for 2023.

But due to a fall in the employability of its graduates and its research output, two crucial performance measures, UoN has dropped 20 spots from last year’s rating.

The rankings are being released as the education industry undergoes significant adjustments. In an effort to pull universities out of their current financial mess, there has been an increased focus on university finance recently.

In order to rate colleges from around the world on four criteria—educational quality (25%) employability (25%) faculty quality (10%) and research performance (40%)—CWUR analyzed 62 million outcomes-based data points.

These are measured independently of surveys and information provided by universities. 20,531 universities were ranked this year. Stephen Kiama, vice chancellor of the University of Nebraska, was ecstatic to get the news.