Last summer, financial analysts predicted that the Trump administration's restrictions on international enrollment and increased scrutiny of foreign students would create financial risk for colleges.

They argued that those policies tarnish the reputational shine of U.S. higher education and could have an outsized impact on tuition revenue, as international students often pay full price.

Enrollment data has done little to assuage those concerns. Even before President Donald Trump retook office last year, growth in international enrollment in the U.S. had slowed after rebounding following the pandemic.

College officials are now concerned that loss of momentum will deteriorate further under Trump. In the year following his return to the White House, the U.S. Department of State revoked some 8,000 student visas as part of a broader federal crackdown on immigration.

Rapidly changing student visa policies and conflicting messaging from the Trump administration have bred uncertainty for foreign students, potentially constricting the international pipeline further.

Below, we use federal and institutional data to explore how international enrollment got to this precipice — and what it means for the future.

In 2024-25, new international student enrollment at U.S. colleges fell 7.2% year over year, according to the most recent Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education and the State Department. The decline came after the metric stagnated the year prior.

As such, U.S. colleges, especially those with high shares of international students, were already approaching the 2025-26 academic year with caution.

But increasingly aggressive policy moves by the Trump administration — from seeking to cap student visas at four years to detaining international student protesters without criminal charges — dashed what little hope remained for preserving a healthy pipeline of international students.

Two batches of early data could be canaries in the coal mine for the higher ed sector.

As part of the annual Open Doors report, released in November, researchers surveyed more than 800 colleges on their preliminary fall 2025 data. Enrollment from new international students declined by 17% compared to fall 2024, the survey found.

A report from Common App found that, as of March 1, international students submitting applications to U.S. colleges on its platform for the 2026-27 academic year had decreased 9% from the same period the year before. 

China and India remain the two most dominant sources of international students studying in the U.S. But the two have swapped positions for first and second place in recent years.

From 2022-23 to 2023-24, the number of Chinese international students in the U.S. dipped 4.1% to roughly 277,000, continuing the creeping decline that started during the pandemic. In stark contrast, India sent nearly 332,000 students to study at U.S. colleges in 2023-24, a 23.3% jump from the year prior. 

India has held the top spot ever since, increasing its share of international students as China's total continues to tick down.

This shift, in part, represents demographic changes in both countries. In India, over 40% of the population is 25 years old or younger. China, meanwhile, is undergoing a decline in college-aged students that is projected to continue.

The U.S. has also increasingly become an unwelcoming place for Chinese international students.

Trump's distrust of Chinese international students dates back to his first term. In 2020, he issued a proclamation restricting student visas for broad swaths of Chinese researchers and graduate students. This included anyone who has ever worked for, studied at or conducted research for an entity that supports China's "military-civil fusion strategy." At the time, Trump cited a desire to prevent Chinese nationals from attempting to “acquire and divert foreign technologies.”

Former President Joe Biden continued to enforce the proclamation during his term.

An early 2024 survey of Chinese graduate students studying in the U.S. found that 3 in 5 reported experiencing discrimination on campus. More than 1 in 10 said they had been accused of being a spy for the Chinese government during their time in the U.S.

The second Trump administration has gone on to muddy the policy waters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May 2025 that his agency would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” particularly for those “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” But the announcement was quickly pulled from public view, and Trump seemingly walked back Rubio's statement that summer by voicing plans to issue 600,000 Chinese student visas.

As the pool of prospective Chinese students dwindles, U.S. colleges are focusing recruitment efforts on international students from India and other top 10 countries.

But unlike the two heaviest hitters, other prominent countries that send their students to the U.S. do so in the tens of thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands. Among those, Nigeria has established itself as an increasingly strong source of international students. 

From 2015-16 to 2024-25, the number of Nigerian students studying at U.S colleges has more than doubled to almost 22,000.

Federal policy under the Trump administration, however, is set to crush that burgeoning pipeline.

In a December presidential proclamation affecting over 20 countries, Trump put Nigeria under a partial travel restriction. The indefinite designation blocks Nigerian citizens from receiving F visas, known colloquially as international student visas, and J visas, which can cover certain foreign students, as well as college instructors and researchers working in the U.S. on a short-term basis.

Trump cited data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection alleging that more than 1 in 10 Nigerian citizens in the U.S. on an F, J or M visa overstayed their time limit. M visas are for international students who attend eligible vocational or nonacademic institutions. However, a June report from the National Foundation for American Policy found CBP’s data likely overestimated the true number of overstayed visas across all countries analyzed.

Since 2021, the federal government has increasingly denied visa applications for international students from almost all corners of the globe, according to data obtained by Shorelight, an education services provider. 

Africa has seen the largest percentage point increase in rejections. The U.S. denied almost two-thirds of visa applications from African students in 2025. That's compared to less than half a decade ago.

Over the same period, South American students saw their visa rejections more than triple, from 7% in 2015 to 22% in 2025.

In contrast, about 1 in 10 prospective students from Europe have had their U.S. visa denied each year since 2015.

The Trump administration has also been allowing exemptions for certain F visa holders, known as Special Student Relief designations, to expire. Under an SSR, an international student experiencing severe economic hardship can take fewer classes than normally required and work more hours if they are from a country designated as in crisis by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In January 2025, 13 countries had SSR designations, including Ukraine, Afghanistan and Venezuela. Palestinian students and those from Hong Kong were also eligible at that time.

All of those designations have since lapsed. The last remaining SSR, which was for Lebanon, expired on May 27.

At least one U.S. university appears to have implemented a de facto ban on Chinese students amid pressure from lawmakers.

Multiple news outlets reported that administrators at Purdue University, a top-tier research institution in Indiana, have directed faculty in charge of admissions not to accept graduate students from China and other countries designated as “adversary nations” by the federal government. The university also reportedly rescinded acceptance letters already issued to some Chinese applicants last year.

Despite faculty repeatedly affirming the policy's existence in interviews, Purdue has denied that the policy exists, saying in March that it had offered admissions to students from places designated as countries of concern by the federal government.

Such a policy could come as a surprise to those familiar with Purdue, which hosted the eighth-largest group of international students of any U.S. college in 2024-25.

Since March 2025, the university has faced scrutiny from an influential conservative federal lawmaker — Rep. John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — over its enrollment of students from China.

Other institutions that enroll large shares of international students, meanwhile, have taken measures to curb the expected drop in international students.

The University of California system — whose Los Angeles, Berkeley and San Diego campuses all rank among the top 15 U.S. college destinations for foreign students — accepted 17% more international students for fall 2025 than the year before due "to rising uncertainty of their likelihood of enrolling." That amounted to an additional 3,263 acceptance offers to international students.

Among the colleges surveyed by Open Doors in the fall, 56% elected to allow international applicants admitted for fall 2025 to defer their enrollment for a year.

Among U.S. colleges' many international enrollment woes, a recent decline in graduate students has proven especially wounding.

Colleges already saw international graduate enrollment dip 2.7% from 2023-24 to 2024-25 — a loss of roughly 13,800 students — following four years of steady growth. But survey and enrollment data from the current academic year sent up a bevy of red flags for university leaders.

Newly released data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that international graduate enrollment sank 4.3% in spring 2026 compared to the year prior. Public four-year colleges were hit particularly hard, seeing a 9.2% year-over-year loss in international graduate students.

That's on top of declines in new enrollment reported in the fall. An October survey of roughly 200 colleges — conducted by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and other groups — found an average of 19% fewer new international students enrolled in their master’s programs compared to the year before.

A majority, 84%, of 149 U.S. colleges surveyed in the spring cited restrictive visa policies as a significant challenge to international enrollment, according to a follow-up report. That was up from 68% five months earlier and 58% in 2024.

Universities are already feeling the financial pinch.

DePaul University, in Chicago, reported that its overall international enrollment dropped by about 755 students in fall 2025 compared to the previous year. That decline was driven by a roughly 62% year-over-year loss in new international graduate students, it said. In fall 2024, the Catholic institution enrolled 1,987 international graduate students, accounting for over a quarter of its graduate student body, per federal data.

University leaders chalked the loss up to “challenges to the visa system” and “declining desire for international students to study in the U.S.”

DePaul has since laid off 114 staff members, amounting to 8% of its workforce, in the face of a multimillion-dollar deficit. 

At the University of North Texas, more than half of its 12,406 graduate students in fall 2024 came from outside the U.S., according to federal data. The public research institution, which has also seen a significant loss of state funding this year, had expected to lose international students amid the uncertain federal landscape. But the actual drop far outpaced university officials' expectations.

"We had planned for some decline," University of North Texas President Harrison Keller told Higher Ed Dive this spring. "But we did not anticipate that, in this past year, there would be such a steep drop in the number of students who were able to secure visas."

In total, 2,700 graduate applicants accepted to UNT master's programs were not able to attend, according to Keller. 

"Each of those students would have brought between $20,000 and $25,000 to the institution," he said. "That’s a significant hit."

Keller and university Provost Michael McPherson announced plans in March to shutter dozens of degree programs and consolidate academic departments.

Less than an hour's drive south, the University of Texas at Arlington saw its international enrollment drop 20% year over year to 3,689 students in fall 2025 — the largest annual decline the university has seen in the last decade — according to an analysis published by The Shorthorn, its student newspaper. 

The number of international undergraduates at the public university increased, but a sharp 36.8% drop in foreign graduate students weighed down the overall average.

In a draft budget summary released in August, UT-Arlington predicted that a 40% decline in international graduate students would contribute significantly to an expected loss of between $13 million and $15.6 million in tuition revenue for the 2026 fiscal year.