Although the survey focused on the effects of the pandemic on universities, it is just one of several issues that will affect their financial health. Changes to the US visa programme will also be a factor. On 22 June, the US government announced that it will stop issuing certain categories of foreign-worker visa — notably the H-1B visa for foreigners hired as university faculty members or by technology firms — until the end of the year. “It’s hard to say which is the major influence,” says Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington DC, which represents 500 universities worldwide, mostly in the United States and Canada. “They’re both really important and still very much in flux.”