CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Moving from India to come to UNC Charlotte for graduate school wasn’t something Yash Tadimalla took lightly.

“I was looking for me, a research-forward thinking university which was near a city but also affordable, so there’s very few in the United States,” says Tadimalla.

But now, that could all change. Just a few days ago, ICE announced new restrictions on student visas, requiring students taking online classes to return home.

“With the pandemic and everything, it’s already hard enough to focus on education, without having to think about every other thing like how to go to class,” says Tadimalla.

Remote learning is something that may not be as simple as it seems, when you factor in the time zones.

“I actually know one of my friends who got stuck with study-abroad this spring and she had to take classes at 4 in the morning to attend the class in person at noon here,” says Tadimalla. “Some nights she had to be awake at 2 a.m. to make it work here.”

This is also a  fear students like Meduri are realizing could be a reality.

“So everything is piling on to students and this may be the  lowest times of their lives if they’re solid,” says Meduri.

Meduri came with her parents to the U.S. when she was 10 years old, on her Father’s work visa.  But now that she is 21, she just applied for a student visa. This means, if something doesn’t change, she says she will have to return without her family back to India to live with her grandmother.

“But for many that may not be the case,” says Meduri. “Their entire families may be here. They may not have anywhere to go back to if you are not in a similar situation as of mine.”

UNC Charlotte officials released a statement Thursday stating in part, they plan to offer instruction this fall using a combination of in-person hybrid and remote learning classes, and that they plan on reaching out directly to international students to help them maintain their visa statuses.

Still, Meduri says she’s worried about how this could affect students long-term; especially if hybrid programs switch halfway through the semester to solely online.

“As universities are trying to find a cure for COVID-19 and everything, I think it’s important to consider the health of international students because I think it’s important that they find ways to keep them here,” says Meduri. “You have to look at it from a humanitarian perspective instead of ‘oh we’re just a business we don’t really care. We just want you here for the money.’ I think you have to really look at that and help them out. Because they are people and not just a consumer or a service that you are selling to someone.”

UNC Charlotte is not the only campus looking at ways to work on this issue. UNC Greensboro is looking at similar avenues to address this problem in the fall.