Prime Highlights:
- US universities predict a sharp drop in graduate enrollments from abroad next year.
- Growing visa backlog, international competition, and policy uncertainty drive enrollment crisis.
Key Facts:
- US student visa issuance fell 22% in May 2025 compared with May 2024.
- 87% of colleges report application challenges; 71% point to international competition as a growing problem.
Key Background
Foreign students are an integral component of the US system of higher education. They bring a substantial amount of money into university funds by remitting full tuition and intellectual and cultural diversity to the nation’s campuses. Foreign students also help the economy as a whole with billions of dollars of economic activity and thousands of jobs injected.’.
Globally, traditionally, the US has been among the best-ranked countries for global students to emigrate to. Recently, though, shifts in world paradigms, stringent visa policies, and government failure to clearly communicate have eroded the competitive edge of the country. Other policy habits such as increased screening, SEVIS system failures, and travel bans have deterred prospective students.
Those emerging education markets like Germany, France, Japan, and the UAE have become the popular destination for international students. They have soft visa policies, post-study work, and greater political stability. Hence, the traditional hegemony of the US, UK, Canada, and Australia is challenged.
In a bid to remain in business competitively in the world, American universities will have to keep revising international recruitment plans and advocate for more student-oriented, liberal immigration policy to utilize. The next school year will be a difficult test to universities as they grapple to maintain their global attraction in the face of a fast-evolving world education marketplace.
