Recent conflicting statements between President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, combined with reports of student deportations, have created widespread confusion about America’s current policy on international students. Contributors to Minding the Campus have already critiqued Trump’s remark that he would allow 600,000 Chinese students into the country, and have argued that the administration make its position clearer. So what follows here is a look at what colleges and universities—and other critics of the Trump administration—are thinking, along with evidence that the administration may, in practice, still be enforcing lower levels of international student admissions.
In June, President Trump issued a travel ban restricting visas for nationals of several countries, citing national security concerns. In Executive Order 14161, Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats, he stated that the U.S. must prevent foreign nationals who pose risks—such as intending to commit terrorist acts, espousing hostile ideologies, or exploiting the visa system—from entering the country. The order directed the Secretary of State and other federal officials to identify countries with inadequate screening and vetting processes and to impose conditional restrictions on the entry of their nationals.
One of the latest developments regarding this came on August 21, when a federal judge ruled that the State Department cannot automatically deny visa applications solely because of the travel ban. While the ruling requires applications to be reviewed individually, restrictions at airports and borders remain in place. In fact, an unknown but presumably large portion of foreign students are being turned away and sent back home when they land in the U.S., as the Associated Press recently reported.
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Moreover, there does appear to be a significant drop in international students. The University of Denver, for example, reports a 25 percent decline in international student enrollment. It was predicted that international student enrollment would decline by 15 percent this fall semester under the current policies.
Reports also indicate that more than 6,000 student visas were revoked in 2025, including cases tied to criminal charges such as assault and burglary, as well as allegations of support for terrorism.
“Every single student visa revoked under the Trump Administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States,” a senior State Department official said in a statement to Fox News.
Before his recent comment about allowing Chinese students into American colleges and universities, Trump and his officials argued that the U.S. had been too lax in issuing visas, allowing individuals who pose potential risks to slip through the system. By revoking visas tied to criminal or terrorist concerns, they maintain that studying in America is a privilege that comes with the responsibility to uphold U.S. laws and values.
Universities, which are facing financial and enrollment uncertainty, say that restricting their ability to enroll foreign students could exacerbate their situation, as these students typically pay full tuition. Moody’s Investors Service recently predicted that even a 10 percent dip in international student enrollment could significantly affect 54 institutions. The effect is especially pronounced in specialized institutions, such as arts universities. These schools are already facing a decline in overall enrollment, whose student bodies can be over 30 percent international. Moody analysts claimed in their report that the changing administrative policies are “diminishing the perception of the US as a prime destination for higher education,” and “Universities intending to fill the gap with more international students may fall short.”
Timothy Stiven, an educator who works with Afghan students abroad, said that Trump’s policies could silence needed voices on campus. “The effect on the universities is both financial, not just in the threat of lost federal grants, but in lost tuition,” he told Minding the Campus. “More importantly, the university will lose divergent voices, creative innovation, and thus the mission of the institution itself is threatened.”
Supporters of the administration’s approach, however, argue that universities have become too dependent on foreign enrollment and that national security must take precedence over financial loss. They maintain that the revocations focus on individuals accused of crimes or security threats, not the majority of international students. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained in May, “We’re going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facilities.”
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Stiven expressed skepticism that tighter methods improve safety, warning that any students who “are Queer, Brown skin or a hijab” may now feel like targets—what he said, I am just the messenger.
Although Trump’s recent statements have caused considerable confusion, it appears that restrictions and suspensions are still in effect. That leaves colleges concerned about their financial stability. University administrators warn that losing even a small number of foreign students could negatively affect enrollment targets, reduce tuition revenue, and weaken the school’s programs.
Administrators’ concerns, however, primarily reveal the extent to which American universities have become dependent on foreign student enrollment. Instead of prioritizing international students, our education system should be creating accessible ways for American students to attend. Perhaps if they did this, they wouldn’t be so worried about staying afloat.
Image: “University of denver campus” by CW221 on Wikimedia Commons
The problem is simple.
The ’90s were lean years for higher education — they’d made it through the ’80s with “empty nest” Baby Boomer women who had left to have children and were coming back to finish (or earn) their degrees, but by the 1990s these women had either already graduated or too old to start a new career.
So when the Millennials arrived 20 years ago, people thought that higher education had returned to the glory days of the 1970s. Every college in the country expanded, building lots of new buildings paid for with multi-decade bonds which usually had underwriting requirements specifying a minimum number of students on campus.
The problem was that where Baby-Boomer children were in families of 3-6 and largely centered around a 15 year period, the Millennial children were in families of 1-2 and largely centered around a 5 year period. I remember the late ’80s — everyone was pregnant — 19-year-olds who’d married their high school boyfriends and women who’d gone to college and been in the workforce for a decade or more.
This created a very narrow bulge that was quite apparent in K-12 in the ’90s and some of us were warning that the good times were not going to last. And this was before the birthrate plummeted with the 2008 recession.
The problem is simple — our higher education industry is too big — we have too many IHEs and too many seats — and by 2030, half of both (that we had in 2019) will be gone.
And no one has ever told me what happens when (not if) headcount drops below the underwriting minimum of the bonds….