For decades, the United States has held a commanding lead as a destination for international students interested in STEM fields. Then U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration began revoking student visas, temporarily froze student visa interviews, promised extra scrutiny for Chinese students, and instituted new social media checks for all applicants.
Now, early signals from organizations involved in international student placement show a steep drop off in interest in U.S. colleges and universities. And experts say the Trump administration’s policy changes will have long-term consequences. “These actions that are being taken right now will undercut the U.S. position in the global higher education market for a generation to come,” says Clay Harmon, executive director of the Association of International Enrollment Management (AIRC).
Early indicators of flagging interest in U.S. education
Studyportals, a company that helps international students find higher education programs around the world, tracks the inquiries that visitors make on its website. It publishes reports about search trends that tend to map to enrollment trends a few years down the line. In late May, Studyportals released data showing that student interest in studying in the United States (in all fields) has dropped to its lowest level since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with weekly pageviews for U.S. degree programs declining 50 percent between January and the end of April.
At Spectrum’s request, Studyportals looked specifically at its data for engineering programs. The company found that student interest in U.S. bachelor’s engineering degrees dropped by 41 percent between January and May, while interest in master’s engineering degrees declined by 36 percent. Looking at engineering subdisciplines, Studyportals saw the steepest drops in aerospace, automotive engineering, electronics, marine engineering, and robotics.
“Every student who decides against America isn’t just lost tuition money—it’s lost talent,” says Edwin van Rest, CEO of Studyportals. “The person who could’ve started the next big company or made some major discovery might end up in London instead of Boston, all because of decisions being made right now.”
Other organizations echo Studyportals’ findings about international students in all fields losing interest in U.S. schooling. IDP, another company that helps students find programs abroad, told Spectrum that searches for programs in the United States dropped below searches for those in the United Kingdom for the first time this February. And in an IDP survey in May of more than 900 prospective international students with U.S. study aspirations, 44 percent indicated that they were “seriously considering” other study destinations over the United States.
Harmon of AIRC notes that “there’s a really long timeline” for families considering sending a student abroad for higher education. “Some parents start tracking their kids as early as kindergarten,” he says, noting that families may opt for bilingual schools to prepare their children for undergraduate studies in the United States. For graduate and doctoral programs, Harmon says, prospective students may take several years to find a program that’s a good match before they even start dealing with financial and visa logistics. So flagging interest now could have repercussions for many years.
Spectrum reached out to the U.S. Department of State and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on international student policies, but received no reply. Spectrum also reached out to universities including MIT, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley for comment on international student enrollment for the coming school year, but representatives said they’ll release enrollment figures in the fall and have no comment before then.
In the 2023-2024 academic year, the number of international students studying in the United States was at an all-time high.Open Doors
How many international students study in the United States?
The number of international students pursuing higher education in the United States reached an unprecedented high of 1.1 million in the 2023-2024 school year (the most recent for which statistics are available), according to data from the U.S. Department of State. The majority of those students, 56 percent, studied in STEM fields, with 19 percent studying engineering and 25 percent pursuing degrees in math or computer science.
In the field of artificial intelligence, the statistics are particularly striking. A 2023 analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy found that 70 percent of graduate students in fields relating to AI are international students, and that 42 percent of the top AI companies based in the United States (as determined by the Forbes AI 50 list) had a founder who came to this country as an international student.
In an interview with Newsmax in May, U.S. Vice President JD Vance argued that the country doesn’t need to import foreign students to do “great things,” saying, “I just think we should invest in our own people.” But Harmon takes issue with that idea: “The idea that international students are stealing seats from domestic [applicants] couldn’t be farther from the truth.” He notes that the full non-resident tuition paid by international students provide resources to universities that in effect subsidize domestic students who receive financial aid.
The economic impact of international students
In June, NAFSA: Association of International Educators collected field reports from more than 90 colleges and universities in the United States. Nearly 75 percent of those institutions said they anticipate a decline in international enrollment this fall, and 40 percent of respondents had heard from students who have decided against studying in the United States. The top five countries that they’re turning to instead are the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, China, and Germany.
“International students and scholars are tremendous assets that contribute to U.S. preeminence in innovation, research, and economic strength,” says Fanta Aw, NAFSA executive director and CEO. “Undermining their ability to study here is self-defeating.” Her organization regularly conducts economic analyses relating to international students; its most recent report found that in the 2023-2024 school year these students contributed US $34.8 billion to the U.S. economy.
Harmon notes that many other nations have recognized the value of international students and have instituted recruitment campaigns, with countries such as Germany and China offering free tuition to international students in hopes of attracting young skilled workers.
“It’s very hard to build up a reputation for having the best education opportunities in the world, and it’s easy to destroy that reputation and the trust,” says Harmon. “Especially when there are eager others waiting in the wings to take those students.”
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