Milloni Doshi, a 25-year-old student from India who is supposed to start her master’s degree this fall at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, has a problem.

Although Ms. Doshi has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, she received two doses of Covaxin, which is made by an Indian manufacturer and is not currently approved by the World Health Organization, as required by the university.

Columbia has told her she will need to be revaccinated with a different vaccine once she arrives on campus, but no one can say for sure if it is safe to do so.

“I am just concerned about taking two different vaccines,” she wrote via a messaging app. “They said the application process would be the toughest part of the cycle, but it’s really been all of this that has been uncertain and anxiety-inducing.”

Since March, more than 400 colleges and universities in the United States have announced vaccine mandates, requiring students to be immunized against the coronavirus. But the rules have been designed primarily with domestic students in mind, leaving international students scrambling — particularly those in India and Russia.

 

 

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Milloni Doshi receiving a dose of the Covaxin vaccine in Mumbai, India. It is not a vaccine that her school, Columbia, currently accepts.Credit... 

Neither Covaxin nor the Sputnik V vaccine, which is manufactured in Russia, has been approved by the W.H.O. American students, however, have access to the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, three of the eight authorized by the health agency, according to a W.H.O. spokesman.

The disparity could hinder colleges that have made it a major priority to retain international students, who brought in close to $39 billion in tuition dollars in the year before the pandemic, according to one analysis.

“Universities want to enroll international students because they add diversity to the campus community — and they bring money,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education. “It’s why this has been a subject of intense discussion.”