Dive Brief:
- Between 2014 and 2016, enrollment numbers of Japanese and Chinese students at American colleges and universities increased by 36% and 18%, respectively. But tough talk from the Trump administration on more stringent visa standards and anti-immigration policy has some of these students reconsidering home-based college options, according to the Asian Review.
- With three Asian institutions making the Times Higher Education's World University Rankings for the first time and powered by their emerging success in STEM education, more students from Asian nations and other countries are considering non-U.S institutions like Peking University and Tsinghua University, both in China, for training in the sciences and business.
- Despite the declines, students from China and India still overwhelmingly choose U.S. institutions for higher education, and international students accounted for $36 billion in domestic economic impact in 2015.
Dive Insight:
Concern over losing international enrollment has spiked with the Trump administration's travel ban but could continue with the light being shed on campus controversies. Columbia International University is among the latest institutions to face striking allegations of rampant sexual misconduct, harassment and assault by its leaders and joins the likes of Michigan State University and the University of Kentucky with ongoing high-profile legal and internal reviews of similar charges from prominent campus stakeholders. The latter two institutions are part of the massive doctoral research network that attracts many international students for undergraduate and graduate study in competitive fields.
The total number of international students in the U.S. on F and M visas declined by 0.5 percent between March 2017 and March 2018, according to a biannual report on student visa data compiled by the Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program. The international student shortfall is having an impact on institutions' bottom lines. For example, the University of Central Missouri had a $14 million revenue loss when 550 students from overseas came to campus in 2016, according to a report in the New York Times earlier this year.