U.S. colleges hosted nearly 1.2 million international students in the 2024-25 academic year — a 4.5% increase in international student enrollment from the previous year and an all-time high — according to the annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education and the U.S. Department of State.

But those numbers are poised to fall this academic year. In a preliminary fall survey of 825 colleges, Open Door researchers found that international enrollment declined 1% at those colleges in the first half of 2025-26, driven by a 12% drop-off in graduate students.

This survey could serve as a warning light for international enrollment under the Trump administration, which has attacked foreign students and moved to tighten the visa programs that allow them to study at U.S. colleges.

The Open Doors survey further found that new international enrollment decreased 17% in fall 2025 at polled institutions. Over half of those colleges, 57%, reported a decline in these students.

The Decline in International Student Enrollment: Growth for Some Programs, Losses for Others

International students — who often pay the full sticker tuition price — are a crucial segment of the higher education sector, particularly at a time when the number of high school graduates in the U.S. is expected to drop and colleges are operating on increasingly thin margins. They are especially important to smaller colleges that rely heavily on tuition revenue.

International students accounted for 6.1% of U.S. college enrollment last academic year, the report said. And they contributed nearly $55 billion to the U.S. economy in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

However, the number of international students who enrolled at a U.S. college for the first time declined 7% in fall 2024 compared to the previous year — the first decrease since the pandemic. A sharp 15% drop in new international graduate students drove the loss, even though new international undergraduates grew 5% year over year.

In 2024-25, over 488,000 international students pursued a graduate degree in the U.S. That’s down 2.7% from about 502,000 the previous year and follows three years of growth.

Read the full article about international student enrollment by Laura Spitalniak at Higher Ed Dive.