Heidi Gilman, 17, a high school senior in Northern Virginia, had long dreamed of attending the University of California San Diego.
She envisioned herself studying politics on the coastal campus, enjoying sunny weather and visiting nearby family.
But after President Trump was re-elected last fall, and as she became disillusioned with American politics, she began to ask herself, “Is this how I want to spend the next four years of my life?” The question prompted her to look elsewhere and apply to Trinity College Dublin — a place where she said she could learn about politics and social policy from another country’s perspective.
Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January, universities across the United States have become targets of a new White House agenda to change higher education in the country. Federal funds supporting research have been cut and programs that encourage diversity on campuses have been upended.
While international students face an urgent need to find universities that will sponsor their visas and allow them to continue their studies, some U.S. citizens are leaving for what they believe are better opportunities.
It’s not clear whether enrollment will be affected for the coming academic year, but The New York Times asked U.S. students in a callout who were considering schools abroad next year what had motivated them to leave. Most of them said they sought a less tumultuous backdrop to their college experiences and were motivated by various federal policies and actions in recent months.
After Ms. Gilman saw the news of firings at the Education Department and students being taken into custody for potential deportations while at school, she began to worry about the direction of the country. “Do I want to be worried about these things, or do I want to be focused on getting an education and learning?”
While some students disagree with the Trump administration’s intrusion into college campuses, other Americans worried about the rise of antisemitism and intolerance on college campuses are pleased to see the shake-up.
For most students, other practical factors such as living costs, financial aid and location weigh heavily in college decisions.
Other U.S. students — motivated by the political environment, funding cuts to universities, better career opportunities or less expensive tuition abroad — are heading to countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and beyond.
In mid-April, Jessamine Jeter, a 27-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Washington in Seattle, was informed that the professor who oversees her research on Indigenous languages in the Brazilian Amazon was leaving for a position at McGill University in Montreal. McGill extended Ms. Jeter an offer to attend as well.
After spending a couple of weeks considering the offer, she realized there was little funding left in the United States to continue the linguistics work she is most passionate about and decided she would most likely follow her professor to the Canadian institution.
“It’s been very difficult,” Ms. Jeter, who grew up in Washington State, said. “I love the department so much, but thinking about opportunities, career wise and research wise, I’m losing a lot of those by staying here.”
As U.S. students and faculty lose research funding or have their acceptances rescinded because of budget cuts, some universities in other countries have made attempts to court them. The University of British Columbia, for example, reopened applications for some U.S. graduate students in April, later than the typical January deadlines.
Gage Averill, the provost at the University of British Columbia Vancouver, said the institution recognized that U.S. students were “having to make decisions on the fly” when it came to choosing their next steps in academia.
Dr. Averill also said the university was seeing increased interest from U.S. students. The number of undergraduates from the United States who accepted admission offers from the University of British Columbia this year more than doubled from last year, he said, from 107 to 227 students. The University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto have also reported some increased interest from U.S. students.
It is difficult to get a broad picture of U.S. student enrollment abroad, because there is no one institution that tracks it. For many institutions and government education departments, enrollment data often becomes available months later or sometimes during the following academic year.
Aaron Dowd, 18, a high school senior in Maryland, said he applied to the University of Toronto two days after the presidential election, at his mother’s urging. Mr. Dowd will pursue a mechanical engineering degree and hopes to use it to do medical research.
Initially, “Canada was nowhere on my list,” he said, adding that his top choice had been the University of Maryland. Studying in Canada “was basically going to be a plan B just in case things in the country went south as a result of the new administration.”
But when the National Institutes of Health and other research institutions began to experience cuts, Mr. Dowd’s plan B appeared to be the “safest option” for his education and future career, he said.
“They’re not going to have as much of funding going to research at these universities,” Mr. Dowd said, “which would have been a critical part in my education there.”
Kyle Kotanchek, 21, is graduating in June from the University of California Los Angeles with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in material science and engineering. He had been considering attending the University of Chicago this fall for his Ph.D. program to research battery materials. He had also applied to some schools in Europe.
Soon after the acceptances rolled in, changes in research funding and turbulence in the economy made him concerned about the future of his industry. He was also worried that the most well-known company for his career in the United States is Tesla, which is owned by Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s close adviser.
Then one of his fears became a reality: Northwestern deferred his acceptance because of funding concerns. An adviser at the University of Chicago emailed him shortly after and said he should commit quickly or risk being deferred there, too.
The choice between staying in the United States or going abroad became easier, and Mr. Kotanchek chose to accept a pay cut for a Ph.D. program at the University of Cambridge.
“I see just the global tide turning in such a way where the U.S. is no longer going to be as reliable,” Mr. Kotanchek said, adding that he had also chosen Cambridge in order to to open up his job opportunities to the global market where there are more companies focused on batteries.
While funding research has pushed some students to pursue educational opportunities elsewhere, others fear their ethnicity or gender identity will put them at risk.
One 24-year-old Venezuelan American man in Texas, who asked not to be identified because he fears being targeted, initially planned to get a master’s degree in business at the University of Texas at Austin or the University of Texas at Dallas.
Even though he became a U.S. citizen last year, he fears being swept up in the Trump administration’s deportations of Venezuelans, which have included people who had been living in the country legally.
So he has decided to leave Texas and attend University College London.
“Any Venezuelan person here, no matter legal or not, is not really safe,” he said. “No one’s told me it’s the wrong thing to do. Everyone just kind of agrees and says I’m probably safer.”
Renee Breaux, an 18-year-old transgender student from Austin, Texas, was also concerned for his safety after the Trump administration tried to ban transgender people from changing their passports and threatened to sue schools that allowed transgender athletes to compete.
At first, Mr. Breaux considered small liberal arts schools that felt welcoming to him, but he feared that even those institutions could eventually come under a microscope. He ultimately decided to attend Utrecht University in the Netherlands, a choice that was cemented when he found that tuition fees were lower than in the United States. He will major in museum studies and history.
“I didn’t really feel comfortable staying in the country,” Mr. Breaux said, “when I don’t quite know where the future is heading.”
Sara Ruberg covers breaking news and is a member of the 2024-25 class of Times Fellows, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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