Recently, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scored a major victory for colleges across America when they filed suit against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security over the government’s new guidance that essentially told international students — if they weren’t taking in-person courses — to go home. The federal government soon withdrew the guidance, though this reversal did not apply to newly admitted international students to the Class of 2024. So just how many students are impacted by this caveat?

Let’s use the University of Pennsylvania as an example where about 14% of students admitted to the Class of 2024 are internationals. International students in the Class of 2024 — hailing from 98 nations around our world — number over 450. As Julia Klayman and Hannah Gross report for The Daily Pennsylvanian in a piece entitled “International first-year students taking an entirely online course load cannot enter U.S.,” “Penn students who intend to pursue a ‘100 percent’ online course of study will likely not be able to obtain a visa to study in the U.S., International Student and Scholar Services Director Rodolfo Altamirano wrote in an email to The Daily Pennsylvanian. Students who enroll in a course load that includes both in-person and online components will likely be able to acquire F-1 status and can get letters of support from their school or department to confirm they are attending a hybrid program in the fall, Altamirano wrote.”

It will be interesting to see in the days ahead if the University of Pennsylvania and other colleges across America will find success in challenging the federal government’s restrictions on the ability of international students in the Class of 2024 to attend this fall. But with fall classes just around the corner, it seems these institutions — while successful in their campaign in support of international students who are beyond their first year of college — might just run out of time for international admits to the Class of 2024.