Student Union
Blind Pakistani Student is Fully Able to Win Rhodes Scholarship
For Khansa Maria, a student at Georgetown University’s campus in Qatar, her advocacy work for people with disabilities is personal.
Maria is blind and has faced disability challenges growing up in Pakistan. And she will use that experience, she said, when she heads to Oxford University next fall as Pakistan’s 2021 Rhodes Scholar-elect, to pursue a master's degree in evidence-based policy intervention and social evaluation.
“I do have a disability, I am blind, and I firsthand experienced the impacts of not having an inclusive society,” Maria said, noting she wants to give back.
“I do have a certain responsibility to my community to improve things to the extent that I can or at least lend my skills or my experience to the benefit of future blind people from Pakistan,” she said.
Maria advocates for the disabled and educates about inclusion — whether within a friend group or a business thinking of designing its space for people with disabilities. She said she believes people should be better informed.
She attends Georgetown’s Qatar campus — called GU-Q — which follows standards set by the American with Disabilities Act and she said accommodates the disabled better than her hometown of Lahore.
Still, spaces are not always as physically accessible as they need to be to those with disabilities, and conversations and language about the disabled should be more inclusive, Maria said.
At GU-Q, she is studying for a bachelor’s degree in foreign service, with a concentration in culture and politics.
“I thought foreign service or working in someplace like the U.N. would be where I'd end up,” Maria told VOA. “So, [Georgetown] just felt like the perfect fit, where I wouldn't just focus on my advocacy skills and my ability to negotiate diplomatically, but also learn about you know, the historical implications and the economic implication of conflicts.”
Maria has been a campus leader and participant in a multitude of organizations, including the debating union, the South Asian Society, and the Hoya Leadership Pathway. She has also worked at the U.S. Embassy in Qatar.
“They were always willing to listen and adapt,” Maria said of the embassy. “And I got some amazing experiences. I was a part of a really nice team. I got some really good advice and mentorship.”
“I am grateful that my supervisors at the embassy were always supportive and always found opportunities to help me make the best of my experiences. Working with such accomplished and empowering women was a dream come true,” she told VOA.
Maria has also researched diaspora migration and how it is represented in literature. She is writing her honors thesis on the evolution of the disability rights movement in the South Asian context.
Like many college students during COVID-19, Maria has experienced pandemic upheaval.
“I had a couple of trips planned to conferences and stuff that I was supposed to go to, but I wasn't able to do that,” she said. “And I think, in another sense, obviously, there is a certain amount of isolation that came along with it for everyone. I wasn't able to travel back home to Pakistan for a year and a half, you know, classes went virtual, my job went virtual.”
Maria became interested in the Rhodes program after meeting a scholar from India. He was also blind, and they became friends. She was apprehensive at first about applying but followed through.
“I just realized there was no harm in applying,” Maria told VOA. “If nothing else, it would give me an opportunity to just reflect on my experience, get my opportunities together, get my ideas together, and just take the leap.”
She said she couldn’t believe she was selected to be a Rhodes Scholar.
“I was beyond delighted but at the same time, I couldn't believe that it had really happened,” she said. “I realized that I am privileged and am excited about all these new experiences.”
Maria said she is most excited to learn from other people at Oxford.
“You know, what was most impactful for me here [at GU-Q] was the community that I was a part of: the everyday conversations, the random debates,” Maria said. “And that's what I'm excited about — just the environment, the people that I'll meet, the stories that I’ll interact with, and all that I can learn from those people.”
See all News Updates of the Day
- By VOA News
A look at financial aid options for international graduate students in US
The Open Notebook, a site focusing on educating journalists who cover science, has complied a list of U.S. graduate program financial aid information for international students.
- By VOA News
5 tips to help international students settle into US life
An article in Community College Daily looks at ways to support international students in and out of the classroom.
- By VOA News
Communications, value key in attracting international students, research finds
ICEF Monitor, which bills itself as "a dedicated market intelligence resource for the international education industry," takes a look at what matters to international students looking to study abroad.
- By VOA News
Diversity, alumni and funding help make US attractive to international students, school says
A blog post from St. John's University in New York breaks down six reasons international students love studying in the U.S.
They include:
- Gaining access to a global alumni network;
- Unlocking a wider net of scholarships and
- Unmatched cultural diversity.
Millions have had student loans canceled under Biden, despite collapse of his forgiveness plan
Despite failing to deliver his promise for broad student loan forgiveness, President Joe Biden has now overseen the cancellation of student loans for more than 5 million Americans — more than any other president in U.S. history.
In a last-minute action on Monday, the Education Department canceled loans for 150,000 borrowers through programs that existed before Biden took office. His administration expanded those programs and used them to their fullest extent, pressing on with cancellation even after the Supreme Court rejected Biden's plan for a new forgiveness policy.
“My Administration has taken historic action to reduce the burden of student debt, hold bad actors accountable, and fight on behalf of students across the country,” Biden said in a written statement.
In total, the administration says it has waived $183.6 billion in student loans.
The wave of cancellations could dry up when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump hasn't detailed his student loan policies but previously called cancellation “vile” and illegal. Republicans have fought relentlessly against Biden's plans, saying cancellation is ultimately shouldered by taxpayers who never attended college or already repaid their loans.
Biden loosened rules for debt forgiveness
The latest round of relief mostly comes through a program known as borrower defense, which allows students to get their loans canceled if they're cheated or misled by their colleges. It was created in 1994 but rarely used until a wave of high-profile for-profit college scandals during the Obama administration.
A smaller share of the relief came through a program for borrowers with disabilities and through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was created in 2007 and offers to erase all remaining debt for borrowers in a government or nonprofit job who make 10 years of monthly payments.
Most of Monday's borrower defense cancellations were for students who attended several defunct colleges owned by Center for Excellence in Higher Education, including CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University. They are based on past findings that the schools lied to prospective students about their employment prospects and the terms of private loans.
Before Biden took office, those programs were criticized by advocates who said complex rules made it difficult for borrowers to get relief. The Biden administration loosened some of the rules using its regulatory power, a maneuver that expanded eligibility without going through Congress.
As an example, just 7,000 borrowers had gotten their loans canceled through Public Service Loan Forgiveness before the Biden administration took office. Widespread confusion about eligibility, along with errors by loan servicers, resulted in a 99% rejection rate for applicants.
Huge numbers of borrowers made years of payments only to find out they were in an ineligible repayment plan. Some were improperly put into forbearance — a pause on payments — by their loan servicers. Those periods didn't end up counting toward the 10 years of payments needed for cancellation.
The Biden administration temporarily relaxed the eligibility rules during the pandemic and then made it more permanent in 2023. As a result, more than 1 million public servants have now had their balances zeroed out through the program.
All those rule changes were meant to be a companion to Biden's marquee policy for student debt, which proposed up to $20,000 in relief for more than 40 million Americans.
But after the Supreme Court blocked the move, the Biden administration shifted its focus to maximizing relief through existing mechanisms.
Republicans have called for a different approach
Announcements of new cancellation became routine, even as conservatives in Congress accused Biden of overstepping his power. Republican states fought off Biden's later attempts at mass forgiveness, but the smaller batches of relief continued without any major legal challenge.
As Republicans take hold of both chambers of Congress and the White House, Biden's changes could be targeted for a rollback. But it's unclear how far the next administration will go to tighten the cancellation spigot.
Trump proposed eliminating PSLF during his first term in office, but Congress rejected the idea. Project 2025, a blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump term, proposes ending PSLF, and narrowing borrower defense and making repayment plans less generous than existing ones.
