Some public universities report fewer international students amid Trump restrictions

Abhinav Kochar, posing for a portrait, studies computer science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. President Donald Trump’s administration is moving to restrict how long international students stay in the United States, sparking fears about the consequences for American higher education. Kochar, who is from India, is unsure how those federal changes will affect him. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Stateline)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Before Abhinav Kochar traveled from India to the United States to study computer science in late 2023, a consular official interviewed him at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. It’s in a scene repeated countless times around the world each year as foreign students seek access to American higher education.

The high-stakes meeting lasted less than five minutes. Kochar, who’s fascinated by machine learning and artificial intelligence, discussed why he wanted to study in the United States. He was granted a student visa, but said a friend of his was twice rejected.

“The interview process in front of me was pretty brutal,” said Kochar, now a 23-year-old who expects to graduate from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in December with a master’s degree in computer science.

Now, coming to the United States to study has become more difficult. President Donald Trump is back in office and taking a harder line on international students, arguing that they are taking university spots or jobs from American students, though some research shows international students help subsidize domestic students. The Trump administration has also cited security concerns for its more restrictive approach.

The ongoing changes hold major implications across U.S. higher education, including taxpayer-funded public colleges and universities. Some state universities enroll large numbers of international students, who often pay full tuition, boosting schools’ bottom lines. These flagship institutions have long been the envy of the world, attracting generations of foreign students and helping to shape attitudes toward the United States abroad.

Stateline asked for international enrollment data from every public university in the Big 12 Conference — 13 schools spread across the country, many with major research programs likely to attract international students. Six provided some level of information or directed Stateline to publicly available data.

Four of the six schools — Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, Kansas State University, the University of Kansas — reported a decline in international students. The other schools, the University of Utah and West Virginia University, experienced increases in overall international enrollment.

What attracts many international students are the temporary jobs they might get in the United States after graduation. While American degrees can be prestigious, employment experience is what sometimes truly gives them an edge when they return home.

But a Trump administration official has floated eliminating a policy that allows recent foreign graduates to work in the United States. Optional Practical Training, or OPT, allows graduates to stay for a year. Some students in science, engineering and related fields can stay for up to three years.

The Department of Homeland Security has also proposed a rule that would place a default four-year limit on international students’ time in the United States. The plan poses a major obstacle for Ph.D. students, whose studies can sometimes stretch half a decade or more. Currently, students can generally remain as long as they progress toward their degree, a policy known as duration of status.

The Trump administration has also approached some universities with a proposed compact that reportedly calls on schools to limit the percentage of their student population from outside the United States. The compact could serve as a model for other schools across the country.

And the State Department is now applying greater scrutiny to prospective students’ social media, after pausing student visa interviews for several weeks in late spring.

“We need to think about the fact that this is the first year of the Trump administration. This is the first year we are seeing these changes, and we know that there are more changes coming up,” said Zuzana Wootson, deputy director of federal policy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a group that advocates on behalf of hundreds of college presidents and chancellors.

Most Americans support U.S. colleges and universities accepting international students, according to a September survey by the Pew Research Center. Ninety-three percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning respondents and 66% of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents said it’s good for schools to take international students.

But half of all respondents indicated support for limiting the number of Chinese students, and about 40% supported limits on students from India, Nigeria and South Korea.

A sizable minority of Americans also overestimate how many international students are in the country. In the survey, 43% of respondents said international students make up 10% or more of all college students in the United States; in reality, international students account for about 6% of all U.S. college students, though the percentage has grown over time, and especially over the past two decades.

Kochar isn’t yet sure what, if anything, the changes could mean for him. He wants to pursue a doctorate degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City after graduating, though the funding for the position is not yet guaranteed. So he’s begun looking into Optional Practice Training — the work policy for recent foreign graduates that Trump may eliminate.

“I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that is said but not done, in a way. So there is this thing in the back of my head which makes me worry, but then again, nothing is happening in front of me,” Kochar said.

Work experience valued

Many international students say the potential for work experience is crucial to their decision to study in the United States.

Juan Pereira, a 21-year-old finance and economics major at Kansas State University, said having American work experience would be very valuable in his home country of Paraguay. “Regarding experience and all, it would be very, very attractive, I’m sure, for a lot of people who are looking for new hires,” he said.

Amid uncertainty over the United States’ stance toward international students, some data suggests a nationwide drop in enrollment. But the scale and extent of any decline remain unclear.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported 10,370 fewer foreign students in the United States in October 2025 compared with October 2024, a decrease of less than 1%. That’s far less than a possible 15% enrollment decline projected by NAFSA earlier in the year. But inaccuracies have previously been found in the Homeland Security data, which covers all foreign students, including those in high school and other noncollege programs.

Separately, monthly data published by the U.S. International Trade Administration indicates fewer people holding student visas entered the United States ahead of the fall semester. In August 2025, student visa arrivals were 19.1% lower than in August 2024 (the data doesn’t include entries from Canada or Mexico via land). The decline was most pronounced among African countries, with student visa entries from the continent collectively down 32.5%.

Experts in international enrollment cautioned that while the decrease may suggest a decline, it could also indicate many current students decided not to travel home this summer, potentially because they feared their ability to reenter the United States.

Asmita Mahara, a 27-year-old from Nepal who’s a first-year Ph.D. student in biological and agricultural engineering at Kansas State University, said she called off a visit home this summer because of what she called the “ongoing situation right now.” She also opted against traveling to a conference in Canada related to her field.

The summer would have been an ideal time to go to Nepal, Mahara said. “But since I missed this opportunity, I don’t think I will be able to go there before my graduation.”

International enrollment in the United States has risen steadily from 1% of all students during the 1949-1950 academic year to nearly 6% in 2023-2024, according to an analysis of enrollment data by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan group that conducts immigration research. The largest growth has occurred in the past 20 years.

During the 2023-2024 academic year, Arizona State University had the fourth-largest international enrollment in higher education (and the highest among public schools), with 18,430 students, according to Open Doors, a State Department-sponsored data source. Last fall, the university dipped to 15,104 international students. This semester, the number dropped to 14,600, a 3% decline.

On its website, Arizona State attributed the decrease primarily to students’ difficulty obtaining visa appointments in time for the fall 2025 semester. It also emphasized the 3% decline wasn’t final, as students join the university throughout the year.

At Kansas State University, 26 fewer international students are enrolled than a year ago, a decrease of roughly 3%. But overall, the university has about 200 fewer international students than it did five years ago, during the fall 2020 semester at the height of the pandemic — leaving the effect of the Trump administration’s recent moves unclear.

In an email, K-State spokesperson Michelle Geering wrote that some students admitted but not yet studying at the university are experiencing challenges in scheduling visa appointments in their home countries.

At the University of Utah, overall international enrollment climbed by less than 1%, a result driven by a 9.1% increase in international undergraduate students. That helped offset a nearly equally large drop in international graduate students.

Randy McCrillis, the senior international officer at the University of Utah, said he had traveled to India in August as part of an American delegation to recruit students. “When I was there, most of the folks we were talking to were like, ‘Look, I’m just not even going to apply to the U.S.,’” McCrillis said.

Reversal from rhetoric

The Trump administration has said the changes related to international students are necessary to protect the country’s security and American job seekers, and to combat abuse of the visa process. When Homeland Security unveiled its proposal in August to end duration of status, the department said past administrations had allowed international students and other visa holders to stay virtually indefinitely.

Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, indicated during his Senate confirmation hearing that he wants the agency to have the authority to end Optional Practical Training. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, in September called on Homeland Security to restrict work authorizations for international students.

“Competition from foreign graduates is contributing to rising unemployment rates among college-educated Americans,” Grassley wrote in a letter to Secretary Kristi Noem.

The narrowing posture from the Trump administration and its allies marks a reversal from Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Before the 2024 election, Trump said international students should “automatically” receive green cards with their diploma when they graduate.

On “The All-In Podcast” in June 2024, Trump outlined an expansive view of which students should be allowed to remain in the United States permanently. Graduates of two- and four-year colleges, along with those who earn doctorate degrees, “should be able to stay in this country,” he said.

“You have to be able to recruit these people and keep the people,” Trump said.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, and the White House didn’t respond to Stateline’s questions.

Benefits to schools, economy

Supporters of strong international enrollment point to extensive research showing foreign students are a boon to the colleges and universities. They also fear a large, sustained drop in international students would deliver a blow to the American economy.

Researchers who studied international enrollment at public research universities between 1996 and 2012 have previously found that every 10% reduction in state funding was associated with a 12% increase in international enrollment. In other words, universities relied on international students to soften the financial blow of losing taxpayer dollars.

And in October, an academic paper estimated that a one-third drop in international students in STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Math — entering the U.S. workforce would cause a 6-11% drop in the overall STEM workforce.

“The idea that more STEM students in America mean fewer STEM jobs for Americans is something where we don’t need off-the-cuff takes from politicians,” said Michael Clemens, an economics professor at George Mason University who studies the effects of migration and co-authored the October paper.

Blake Flanders, president and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents, which governs the state’s six public universities and coordinates its community colleges, said concerns he hears about international students displacing American students represent a narrative most often associated with elite higher education institutions.

“Certainly, it’s not in alignment with what we have here in Kansas with our state universities or community colleges,” Flanders said during an interview. He added a short time later that Kansas’ state universities have the capacity to take more students.

“International students are a big value-add to the educational experience for Kansans.”

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at [email protected].