By Joan Bolger

THOUSANDS more Irish students have been cleared to work in the U.S. for the summer months after the State Department last week loosened its grip on restrictions governing the J-1 visa program.

Changes in the program mean that third level students may now apply as often as they like and that final year students, who once represented 25% of total participants but in recent years did not quality, will also be given permission to apply.

USIT in Ireland, the student travel agency, has announced that J-1 applications are officially open for 2007 and that if students get their paperwork together by December 11, the program fee of ¤279 will be waived.

“We’re willing to take a financial hit with a view to attracting early birds and increasing the overall number of students who take part,” said USIT commercial director Dearbhla O’Brien, whose organization has been sending students to the U.S. for the past 40 years.

“It is a limited offer designed to get students through the embassy interview early in the year – as well as encouraging students to get the best flight deals, best jobs and accommodation.”

In a similar move, the U.S. Embassy in Dublin has engaged in a campaign with USIT, visiting campuses in efforts to dispel the myths about bureaucracy surrounding the visas.

President of the Union of Students in Ireland Colm Hamogue, himself a two-time J-1 recipient to the U.S. who has aspirations next year to study his master’s in Harvard, told the Irish Voice how those campus visits were going.

“From what I hear, students are very welcoming of the decision. In realistic terms, we could have an additional four or five thousand applicants this summer,” he said.

“When I was doing my degree in Sligo a lot of my own friends wanted to travel in their final year, but couldn’t. I know if they were back now, they’d have taken up the opportunity in a shot if given the chance,” said Hamogue, who worked for a construction company while in New York and lived both in the Upper East Side and Hoboken, while he was here for two consecutive summers.

The State Department has once again reverted to old regulations governing the J-1 program in part after improvements made to security, effectively allowing applications to be streamlined through the Department of Homeland Security.