President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown on foreign students in the United States has had a chilling effect on enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities this fall, according to an analysis funded by the State Department.
Newly enrolled college students declined 17% this fall compared to last year following the Trump administration’s decision to review applicants’ social media when screening student visa applications, according to the Open Doors 2026 report that nonprofit group Institute of International Education released in November.
Dr. Shaan Patel, founder and CEO of college admissions company Prep Expert, said the drop was significant, saying in a statement that “New international student enrollment is down significantly. Fewer first-time international students are choosing the U.S., which signals potential trouble for future enrollment cycles.”
The White House told the Washington Examiner that its actions have bolstered national security, as well as colleges and universities.
“President Trump is Making Higher Education Great Again by restoring merit at our publicly-funded colleges and universities and removing woke [diversity, equity, and inclusion] nonsense,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “He is simultaneously strengthening our country’s visa programs to put American national security first.”
The State Department added that its priority is ensuring the law is followed by those who seek admission into the country as students.
“As President Trump has said, ‘We want to have great students here.’ But, the U.S. government’s top priority is protecting our nation and securing our border, including through high standards for international students who wish to study in the United States,” a State Department spokesperson wrote in an email. “The United States remains the global leader in higher education as the number one destination for international students, while ensuring only legitimate students and top talent enter our nation.”
By the numbers
International students make up 1.2 million, or 6%, of higher education enrollees, according to IIE, and attend schools in all 50 states. The top countries sending foreign students to the U.S. are India and China. Foreign students also contribute roughly $55 billion to the economy by choosing to study in the U.S.
Trump quipped in a Nov. 10 interview with Fox News that colleges would “go out of business” without foreign students, who pay full tuition as opposed to discounted in-state tuition.
IIE found that the top schools for international student enrolled in the 2024-2025 academic year were New York University, Northeastern University in Boston, Columbia University in Manhattan, Arizona State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of North Texas, Purdue University at West Lafayette, Boston University, and University of California at Berkeley.
The 2025 visa shake-up
On his first day in office this year, Trump took executive action to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses, including by going after foreign students who led or participated in pro-Palestinian rallies at certain public and private universities in 2024.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the authority to rescind visas of noncitizens he determines to be a threat to U.S. interests. The law states that students shall be stripped of their visas if they are suspended or expelled from school, or if they are arrested while studying in the U.S.
Among the State Department’s first visa revocations was that of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and recent graduate of Columbia University who helped lead protests over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Trump also signed a compact to ensure no more than 15% of a university’s undergraduate students are foreign, and no more than 5% of a school’s international student population is from a single country.
Dr. William Brustein, special assistant to the president for global affairs and a distinguished history professor at West Virginia University, warned in April that the Trump administration’s efforts could have a dramatic effect on foreign student enrollment and U.S. interests.
“I am fairly confident that the Trump administration’s crackdown on student visa recipients who it alleges engaged in pro-Hamas protests in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of Israelis will indeed have a chilling effect on foreign student enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities this fall,” Brustein wrote in an email.
The Trump administration pulled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia and put $9 billion under review at Harvard University as part of a broader crackdown on what it says is unchecked antisemitism on college campuses.
The White House spent the summer taking steps to disincentivize students abroad from studying in the U.S., including by pushing schools to limit foreign student admissions, temporarily suspending student visa screening interviews, and rescinding visas for students accused of crimes, overstaying their visas, or who took part in select pro-Palestinian campus riots.
By August, the White House had slashed more than 6,000 student visas.
A cash cow for universities?
Over 19 million students attended undergraduate and graduate schools in the fall of 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
As enrollment of U.S. citizen students has leveled out in recent years, universities have appealed to foreign students, who pay more than in-state students. For example, in-state tuition at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability graduate degree program is $27,904, compared to $55,100 for international and out-of-state students. International students also pay an additional $1,000 fee.
Dr. Jay P. Greene, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, stated at the time of Trump’s crackdown on colleges that while foreign students pay more than many U.S. students, the financial loss of losing international students will not significantly affect schools that have other revenue streams.
“I don’t think the main issue here is a tuition revenue issue because, again, these institutions mostly are getting their money from donations and research,” Greene said. “That’s where the big money is.”
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However, it is another way that the Trump administration can target colleges’ bottom line after freezing grant funding and pausing research aid, Greene added.
Trump said in November that he is not in favor of crippling college populations: “You don’t want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country — destroy our entire university and college system — I don’t want to do that.”
