Minimum course load for Student Visa

[jaimito]

Hey everyone,

In the hopes of applying for a Student Visa I was hoping to pursue a Tecinactura that would involve approximately 8 hours of classroom time a week. After consulting an Argentine lawyer she seemed to be of the opinion that such a light course load would cause the visa to be rejected as one's principal activity must be studying. Seems sound, I was wondering if anybody else had experience getting awarded a student visa but on not many hours.

Best!

 

[SecretShopper]

I would also like to know this information.

 

[Alby]

I did look into this at one point. The institute where I was looking (the course was a tecnicatura as well) said that they have to report regularly to Migraciones and that if the student isn't doing a full-time study load, Migraciones would pick that up in the reporting. (An institute has to be registered with Migraciones in order for its foreign students to qualify for this category of residency.) The way the institute put it in the email, I think they meant that for the system (i.e., the student visa system) to work, the institute (itself registered as an authorized provider with Migraciones) has to register the student (I presume on some system that Migraciones require them to you), and they can't register the student unless they register student as doing a full-time course.

I am not quite sure how that works in practice. I recall that to apply for the student visa Migraciones only asks for the electronic receipt of your enrollment, which sounds like a separate process to one in which the institute enters the student in a system that Migraciones then look at.

So, in practice, remains unclear to me. But, in principle, it sounds like the idea is you study full time, and that, if you are only studying part-time, if not at the start (but possibly even at the start), then along the way, you run into problems with Migraciones.

(The other obstacle: although the tecnicatura was very cheap for Argentines, the course fees for some registering without DNI (i.e., someone using a passport, doing so for the student visa category) were many times higher.)

 

[SecretShopper]

I guess the next question would be.... what is the absolute easiest class one could take??

 

[Alby]

That I do not know. I would comment however that had I done the course I was interested in (I may do it one day, when I can pay the local fee, and have lots more time), had a very heavy load. I doubt there are any easy options out there. People often talk about the tango university as being a soft option. But I don't know whether it is soft, or how it is even operating in pandemic times.

 

[SecretShopper]

Does the visa last for a certain time period for a year? Or does it match the length of the classes?

 

[Alby]

I don't know. Others may. I imagine, from the brief experience I had looking into this, that this is how it works:

1) You find an institute registered with Migraciones that offers a full time course you are interested in doing.
2) You enroll in the course, and pay the fee (you may find you only have two opportunities per year to do this: at the start of each semester).
3) You use the evidence of your enrollment (the institute generates documentation) to begin and submit an application for a student residency (the Migraciones lodgement system probably asks for certain types of documents that accredited institutes provide their students precisely for this purpose).
4) Migraciones assesses your application, presumably by cross-checking with a separate system that I suspect they have with accredited institutions.
5) Migraciones issue your residency. I imagine it lasts one year.
6) I imagine you repeat the process just prior to enrolling for your second year, should you wish to keep going.

What happens if, after enrolling in the first year as a full time student, you either drop out, or drop back to a course load beneath the threshold, I do not know. However, I got the impression from the institute that they were obliged to keep their system with Migraciones up to date. So, we can probably assume that Migraciones would discover that the residency requirements were no longer being met. Whether they would get around to doing anything about it in the time remaining on your one-year residency, I don't know.

 

[SecretShopper]

All good info. Now they just need to open the border and let me in lol. Is the border still open to neighboring countries or is it shut to everyone now?

 

[D.B. Cooper]

I guess the next question would be.... what is the absolute easiest class one could take??

How about an English class...? If English is not you native tongue.