Editor’s Note: The following article was published by the College Fix on October 30, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission.
The United States will likely see fewer foreign college students in America this school year, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
The Times’s analysis is based on I-94 arrival numbers for August. This is an indicator of enrollment numbers, the Times reported, because “[m]ost international students arrive in August, in time for the fall semester, as they can’t enter the country more than 30 days before their programs begin.”
The Times also used a second federal database, which shows “the increase in the total number of international students was 23 percent smaller this fall, compared with the same period last year.”
[RELATED: The West Is Giving International Students a Colder Welcome]
A higher education expert said this is a positive sign and that only a handful of cities reap most of the economic benefits of more foreign students. However, he wants to see concrete changes that cannot be undone by future presidents.
“Fewer foreign students are coming not just to the U.S., but to the West more broadly,” Jared Gould told the Fix. He is the managing editor of Minding the Campus, an education commentary website run by the National Association of Scholars.
“But unfortunately, this trend is driven largely by rhetoric coming out of the White House—and what makes it particularly unfortunate is that this rhetoric is rarely matched by concrete policy,” Gould said.
He responded to a question about the possibility of small colleges and local communities being harmed by fewer foreign students.
“Many graduate programs are heavily reliant on foreign enrollment; in fact, many of these programs would likely shutter if the foreign student spigot were shut off,” Gould said. “The conservative—and I would argue correct—response is to let those programs fail. If the programs can’t exist without foreign students, they don’t deserve to exist.”
He also said local communities often shoulder the costs of large international student populations. “They lose the option of living in parts of America [where prominent universities are located] due to rising housing costs, as foreign students compete for housing and contribute to increasing pressure on local infrastructure and services,” he said.
Other groups have reached similar conclusions to what the New York Times found.
The National Association of Foreign Student Advisors released a report predicting similar declines.
The group predicted a “15 percent enrollment decline based on current visa restrictions, State Department monthly visa issuance statistics, another immigration database, and SEVIS by the Numbers data for active students.” The NAFSA report said this would lead to “nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 jobs.”
[RELATED: Japan’s Push for More International Students Faces Growing Scrutiny]
But these benefits are concentrated in only a few areas, according to Gould.
“The Chronicle of Higher Education, for example, shows that the $44 billion in economic activity from 1.1 million international students is heavily concentrated in just a few elite enclaves and universities—Boston, New York, California, and Texas—while most of the country sees little benefit,” Gould said.
The Fix contacted the Presidents’ Alliance on Immigration and Higher Education and NAFSA via email or media submission form to ask for comment on the Times analysis. Neither could be reached via phone, as the Presidents’ Alliance did not have its phone number publicly posted, and NAFSA’s phone did not connect to a staff member or voicemail.
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