Higher education experts and policy analysts are sounding the alarm over what they described as the sidelining of foreign students over prioritisation of World Cup visa processing by the United States (U.S) government.
With the U.S preparing to co-host the massive sporting event, the Department of State’s implementation of World Cup visa processing has effectively pushed F-1 student and J-1 exchange visitor applications to the bottom of the consular queue.
The shift comes at the worst possible time, the peak summer admissions cycle when embassies traditionally prioritize academic travelers to ensure they arrive before fall classes begin.
Earlier this year, the U.S. government launched the FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System (PASS). Designed to expedite visitor visas for verified ticket holders traveling for football matches, the system has inadvertently strained resource-strapped consulates globally.
“In the past, the Department of State’s practice was to prioritise international student visa processing … Now, they are pulling away from that and prioritising other visas, specifically for upcoming sporting events,” said Zuzana Cepla Wootson, deputy director of federal policy at the Presidents’ Alliance.
Speaking also with the press at the NAFSA 2026 conference, Cepla Wootson said the practice was “very concerning” for the sector, predicting international enrolment drops in future years bringing sector-wide repercussions.
She drew parallels with last year’s visa interview pause, which was announced during the conference and lasted nearly four weeks, causing knock-on delays in key markets enduring throughout the summer.
Subsequent visa data laid bare the impact of the pause, revealing a 36% year-on-year drop in student visa issuance from June to August 2025 – considered one of the primary drivers of last year’s 17% international enrolment decline.
“We must understand that there is still a travel ban in place that plays a role in international students’ ability to come, so it is really about the cumulative effect of all these policies together, said Cepla Wootson.
She highlighted that as the US puts up barriers, an increasing array of countries are stepping up their international education offerings – with the rise of the ‘Big Fourteen’ one of the dominant themes of this year’s NAFSA conference in Orlando.
“I’m not only talking about the usual suspects … but I’m talking about countries like Germany and even China. [China] used to be primarily a sending country and now it’s starting to understand that there’s a tremendous benefit in welcoming international students,” said Cepla Wootson.
The roots of the crisis trace back to late 2025, when the U.S. State Department issued an internal cable instructing embassies to fully prioritize B1/B2 tourist visas, the category used by World Cup fans, while de-emphasizing the issuance of J-1 exchange visitor visas. The directive came as the State Department simultaneously announced it would deploy hundreds of additional consular officers to designated countries to handle anticipated World Cup demand.
The result was a cascade. U.S. embassies in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Thailand, and Türkiye, all major sending countries for the BridgeUSA exchange program, announced reductions in J-1 visa interview capacity of 50 to 90%.
The Alliance for International Exchange, the primary U.S. industry body representing J-1 stakeholders, has identified 11 countries, including Australia, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, Serbia, Spain, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom, as facing acute appointment shortages, with a collective need of approximately 13,590 additional interview slots.
Compounding the problem is a second, parallel policy shift: mandatory social media vetting is now applied to virtually all non-immigrant visa categories. This requires consular officers to manually review applicants’ online presence, adding significant processing time per interview and further squeezing already-constrained appointment capacity.
Mark Overmann, president of the Alliance for International Exchange, said it was an “uphill battle” for J-1 applicants just to get visa appointments.
“Our data has shown that as much as 19% of potential summer work and travel participants and close to 6% of camp counsellor participants are at risk of not getting an interview. So not even a denial, but just not getting in the door for an interview.
“International students in the program fill seasonal job vacancies at resorts, national parks, amusement parks, restaurants, and summer camps across the United States. They pay their own program fees, flights, visa costs, and SEVIS fees, an average of nearly $5,000 per participant, and spend their wages in local American communities.”
According to the Alliance for International Exchange, the shortfall in appointments this year could result in a $46 million loss in economic contributions to U.S. communities and leave thousands of seasonal positions unfilled, in the very tourist destinations that World Cup visitors will be frequenting.
The same seasonal businesses that depend on J-1 workers to serve American and international tourists this summer are at risk of being understaffed precisely because their workforce pipeline has been deprioritized to accommodate those tourists’ visa applications.
In efforts to mitigate the looming declines, a coalition of 32 organisations led by the American Council on Education (ACE) is urging the state department to “move quickly and efficiently during peak visa season”, warning of shrinking US talent pipelines.
