Many Iranians are not going to American universities this fall. Students from Afghanistan are having trouble getting to campus.
Even students from China and India, the top two senders of international students to the United States, have been flummoxed by a maze of new obstacles the Trump administration has set up to slow or deter people entering the country from abroad.
Between the federal government’s heightened vetting of student visas and President Trump’s travel ban, the number of international students newly enrolled in American universities seems certain to drop — by a lot.
There were about a million international students studying in the United States a year ago, according to figures published by the State Department. Data on international student enrollment is not expected to be released until the fall. But higher education is already feeling the pain and deeply worried about the fallout.
Many schools have seen the number of international students grow in recent years. But a survey of over 500 colleges and universities by the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit which works with governments and others to promote international education, found that 35 percent of the schools experienced a dip in applications from abroad last spring, the most since the pandemic.
In China and India, there have been few visa appointments available for students in recent months, and sometimes none at all, according to the Association of International Educators, also known as NAFSA, a professional organization. If visa problems persist, new international student enrollment in American colleges could drop by 30 to 40 percent overall this fall, a loss of 150,000 students, according to the group’s analysis.
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The post Trump’s Tactics Mean Many International Students Won’t Make It to Campus appeared first on New York Times.
