American universities have reported a 17% drop in new international students following the Trump administration’s crackdown on temporary immigration visas.
That’s up from a 7% annual decline last year and is the sharpest drop in over a decade outside of the pandemic, the nonprofit Institute of International Education reported Monday.
Sponsored by the State Department, the report surveyed 825 higher education institutions representing over half of U.S. international students.
“Some of the changes we’re seeing in new enrollment may be related to some of the more recent factors related to international students,” Mirka Martel, an institute official, said during a press call last week, according to the trade publication Inside Higher Education.
The report found that just over half of the institutions saw declines in first-time foreign enrollment this fall. Another 29% reported increases, and the rest reported no significant changes.
Among those with declines in new international students, 96% cited concerns with visa applications and travel restrictions.
Overall international student enrollment dropped by 1% this fall, the first decline after four years of steady growth following the pandemic, the report found.
Visa delays and denials have long been a leading factor for international student enrollment declines, according to the report.
That uncertainty has grown as the Trump administration scrutinizes H-1B work visas, which many foreign students use to remain in the country after graduation.
The Trump administration paused new student visa interviews in May, creating application backlogs. In June, the State Department began screening applicants more closely.
In an email, a White House official noted that the administration has proposed capping international enrollment at 15% of each college’s student body, with no more than 5% coming from a single nation.
The official said the proposal would also require universities to select internationals “on the basis of demonstrably extraordinary talent,” and to share “all known information” about them with the Department of Homeland Security.
“President Trump is Making Higher Education Great Again by restoring merit at our publicly funded colleges and universities and removing woke DEI nonsense,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, commenting on Monday’s report and referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “He is simultaneously strengthening our country’s visa programs to put American national security first.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump recently pledged to offer 600,000 visas for Chinese students, calling them essential to the financial sustainability of U.S. colleges.
Tuition-dependent universities, which make up the majority of U.S. higher education, have long relied on international students who pay full price to offset discounts for domestic students.
In a separate report published Monday, NAFSA: Association of International Educators tallied $1.1 billion in losses to the U.S. economy due to fewer foreign students.
During the 2024-25 academic year, the nonprofit estimated that international students contributed nearly $43 billion to the U.S. economy and supported roughly 355,000 jobs.
“It isn’t just that students from other countries generate tuition revenue, as President Trump correctly noted,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor in the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, commenting on the enrollment declines. “They also build new enterprises that fuel economic growth.”
Gary Stocker, a former private college administrator who founded College Viability to evaluate campuses’ financial health, said Monday’s enrollment numbers add to the economic pressures that have driven hundreds of colleges to downsize, merge or close since the coronavirus pandemic.
He noted that foreign colleges “have raised their education game in recent years,” incentivizing more students to stay home rather than endure the hassle of pandemic-era travel bans and immigration restrictions.
“This international student decline will significantly impact the smaller, tuition-reliant colleges,” Mr. Stocker said in an email. “The college layoffs and program cutback announcements we see every week are obvious symptoms, and the decline in international students will almost certainly increase the number of those layoffs and cutbacks.”
Higher education has faced dwindling revenues, increased costs and greater barriers to Chinese student enrollment in recent years.
The Council of Graduate Schools, a nonprofit higher education network, reported that India passed China in fall 2021 to become the leading supplier of international graduate students to American universities for the first time. The change came as Chinese officials extended pandemic quarantines and travel bans.
As of June 2023, the conservative National Association of Scholars reported that U.S. national security concerns had also forced 111 Confucius Institutes sponsored by China’s communist government to either close or reopen under new names. Only 11 of the programs were still operating on U.S. campuses, with several more under review.
According to the Institute for International Education, the total number of Indian nationals studying in U.S. universities exceeded that of Chinese students for the first time last year.
The institute found that 265,919 Chinese studied in the United States during the 2024-25 academic year, down 4% from a year earlier. Over the same period, the number of Indian students rose by 10% to 363,019.
National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood said the Trump administration is “extremely unwise” to import more Chinese students due to their tendency to act as agents of Beijing and steal U.S. intellectual property.
“The drop in international students is probably accentuated by the Trump administration making it harder to obtain visas and paying more attention to students who overstay visas to bypass ordinary immigration restrictions,” said Mr. Wood, a former associate provost at Boston University. “I think that’s a good thing and it’s a terrible mistake for the Trump administration to increase the number of Chinese students under current conditions.”
• Mary McCue Bell contributed to this story.
