As one international student powerfully captured it:
“Only international students can truly understand how hard it is to live outside your country while carrying everything silently. Managing finances, rent, food, health, loneliness, cultural shock, study pressure, research deadlines, visa stress, and family expectations, everything happens at the same time. And still, we keep telling our families, ‘I am fine,’ because we do not want them to worry.
We lie to make them happy. We hide our pain because they have already sacrificed so much for us. We smile on video calls even when we are exhausted, broke, sick, lonely, or scared. Because our families back home do not just see us as students. They see us as dreams. They see us as hope. They see us as proof that all their sacrifices meant something.”
— Mohd Ruhul Ameen, Facebook, 26th April 2026
My Story: When the System Failed Me Personally
My journey in the U.S. was not all about odds or even; it is a mixed interaction and reaction.
On the day of the incident, I was waiting for the bus at the University. Unfortunately, buses are not available during the holidays. I was directed to contact the SIUE police for an escort service designated for students. The first officer was well-behaved and dropped me off pleasantly.
On my way back, when I again requested the same service, two police officers arrived. As I was about to get inside the car, one officer mentioned patting me down. I thought he would use a metal detector. To my uttermost surprise, he physically frisked me from top to bottom in public. I was frozen and could not say a single word.
When I gathered the courage to ask why, he responded:
“If someone is sitting in the back of a police car, they are bound to be searched.”
When I told him that, as a male officer, he was not supposed to do that to a female student, he threatened me, saying that if I did not allow it, he would ask me to remove clothing from certain parts of my body. When I said the previous officer had not done this, he responded that the previous officer was wrong.
The incident did not end there. I reported it in December 2023 and heard back only in March 2024, when one of my professors brought it to the university’s attention and termed it Islamophobic.
The most shocking response from the authorities was:
“What the police told the authority was that they had a newer police officer being trained, and they wanted to show what you are allowed to do, so this was them demonstrating what you can do with the student.”
From that day, I accepted the fact that this was not just about inappropriateness. This is about cultural sensitivity. I waited for my turn. When I became Student Senator for Diversity, I drew the attention of the entire university and local media. I demanded that the police change their policies and train their forces to be more culturally sensitive.
Current Challenges
International students are encouraged to consider on-campus accommodation if they wish to walk or ride their bicycles to class daily and to be free from credit card verification and other unaffordable criteria. It will be the last and least affordable on-campus choice. Although the residential halls are generally populated by 18–20-year-olds, the upper-class rooms might not be the atmosphere anyone is searching for.
In the U.S., anyone usually needs a job that earns three times as much as the rent in order to secure a flat. For example, to be considered, one must earn at least $2,700 monthly before taxes if the rent is $900. If one knows someone who could help cover this expense, it is possible to locate flatmates; otherwise, living on campus becomes the only option. The processes of documentation, demonstrating credit card history, managing a suitable flatmate, navigating the trust factor, and avoiding fraud are all too common. The preferences of home students and international students differ greatly when it comes to off-campus housing, leaving international students under considerable pressure and in a dilemma about where to locate, whom to trust, and how to manage.
Students from abroad attending U.S. institutions always feel the pressure of managing a guarantor, credit card history, and bank documents, finding an income source for off-campus housing, and ultimately submitting themselves to on-campus housing, where commuting, leisure facilities, and employment opportunities are rather limited. By comparison, where six to eight people can share a flat within their means, they can also make savings on food and other necessities.
Students can only work on campus unless they have permission from the International Affairs Office to work off campus through CPT or OPT, and both their job and internship must be related to their subject of study. In the United States, obtaining employment requires a Social Security number. This can be obtained by completing an application at the International Affairs Office, for which a job offer form is required. Only 20 hours of employment per week are permitted for international students at SIUE during the Autumn and Spring semesters. An overseas student cannot possibly work on campus alone and pay for housing anywhere near the institution.
“Knowing you could not afford it, why did you study in the U.S.?” This is the most commonly heard question, rather than focusing on what the university can do to stop this decline. Whilst it is not the most luxurious area to reside in, there are undoubtedly some affordable options.
What Research Confirms: A Case from My Own University
This section has been excerpted from a graduate student who defended his Master’s thesis on “The Role of Informal Communality in Managing Stress and Anxiety among International African Students in SIUE.” Oluwatobi Adeyoyin was the former Assistant Community Director of the Student Residential Hall and a Nigerian student in the Department of Sociology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
“The study discovered, amongst other things, that the initial phase of acculturation results in the highest stress levels. Before learning how to adjust or create a coping strategy to deal with their stresses, students frequently experience stress and anxiety when they move into a new setting because of the differences in culture, socio-system, and physical surroundings. For example, one participant said: ‘I think it would be when I first arrived that had been the most stressful part for me, mostly because it was the first time, just getting into the American educational system.’ I found that to be rather distressing, especially since I had to manage that concurrently with attempting to secure a student job, settling in, and figuring out how to navigate the campus. It has yet to be determined whether these issues are no longer seen as difficulties because they have been resolved or because the students have learnt to cope with them.”
(Adeyoyin, 2024, Master’s Dissertation, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)
When Silence Becomes Tragedy
The recent double murder of two Bangladeshi students at the University of South Florida compels me to share something important, whilst expressing deep remorse for those brilliant lives lost.
The accused had a prior criminal history. The male victim, Zamil Limon, was his flatmate. When the female student, Nahida Bristy, arrived to visit him, both were murdered. The accused, Hisham Abugharbieh, is now on trial in Florida.
What makes this tragedy even more painful is the question it raises: despite prior complaints about the accused to housing authorities, the murdered student could not save himself, and the female student was murdered simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How could housing authorities handle such a complaint so lightly? And why are the responsible persons not also being held to account?
This is not merely a criminal matter. It is a failure of institutional responsibility towards the most vulnerable members of the university community.
What Must Change
Research confirms that most African and Asian international students manage their stress by relying on community relationships rather than seeking institutional support. Connections built on mutual trust and loyalty become their primary coping mechanism. Whilst this builds solidarity, it also means that many students suffer in silence far longer than they should, and that institutions are allowed to avoid accountability.
The question that now demands an answer is this: How long will institutions continue to avoid accountability for housing services — both on and off campus — and for the systemic failures of acculturation and isolation that leave international students so dangerously unprotected?
Universities and authorities can no longer look away. The following changes are urgently required:
- Cultural sensitivity training must be mandatory for all campus police and staff
- Housing policies must be replanned to be accessible and financially viable for international students
- Mental health services must be made culturally accessible, and not by following one size fits all.
- Work restrictions and wage policies must be revised to reflect the real cost of living
- Prior criminal history of any resident must be handled seriously by the housing service providers before a complaint becomes a reason for a tragic death
- Institutions must replace the question “Why did you come if you could not afford it?” with “How can we better support those who are already here?”
International students do not merely carry baggage. They carry their family’s expectations, their nation’s dream, and their own silent battles every single day.
Natasha Israt Kabir is a development professional with extensive experience in humanitarian response, gender advocacy, and disability rights. With over two decades of service beginning in 2003, she brings an interdisciplinary perspective to international development, combining grassroots community engagement.
