Declining International Enrollments in US Higher Education Are a Global Matter (and Much More Than Simply a Revenue Problem for American Colleges and Universities)
June 9, 2026, by Chet Haskell and Senthil Nathan – The openness of American colleges and universities to students from other nations has long been understood as a strength. These students enhance the quality and diversity of educational programs for all students. They provide perspectives and experiences that broaden the understanding of American students. They represent significant revenue sources for both institutions and the communities in which they are located. And many stay after graduation to live and work as important elements of American society.
The data show significant declines in international students currently seeking the necessary visas for study in the US. The decline will likely accelerate when combined with large numbers of students currently enrolled and seeking to complete their degrees. According to NAFSA, total Spring 2026 international enrollments in the US are down 20% from the previous year. The more than 1.1 million international students contributed at least $43 billion to the US economy.
At the same time, the policies and rhetoric of the current US Administration are widely seen to have had major negative impacts on American higher education. Visa restrictions, changes in duration of studies regulations and reduced university research funding all act as direct disincentives for foreign students to seek to study in the US. Other broader matters also have impacts as the world watches: explicit attacks on higher education, shuttering of internationally oriented institution like AID, excessive immigration enforcement and the war in Iran. Finally, American actions seem to devalue the importance of its longtime allies and international cooperation more generally. “America First” is hardly an attractive slogan for attracting international students.
The implications for American colleges and universities are severe. First is the simple impact on institutional budgets as fewer international students means reduced revenues. These enrollment effects add to the revenue pressures already felt by many institutions as domestic enrollments are seen as declining in many areas. These pressures are inordinately felt by some small private institutions that also have to compete with increased efforts of public universities to enroll American students.
At the same time, different institutions are hit in different ways. For example, Moody’s a rating agency, on May 12, 2026, downgraded Columbia University’s outlook to negative citing “uncertainty about international enrollments” as a prime factor for this change. Columbia at 40% has one of the largest international student bodies in the US.
Universities with large research programs have already felt the impacts of significant reductions in government funding through cuts at agencies like the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation. While such cuts affect a university as a whole, they place particular pressures on leading Carnegie R1 institutions that have attracted top foreign students into their PhD programs. One result is that most institutions, even the wealthiest, have been trimming budgets and restricting new enrollments in some graduate programs.
The top US research universities have welcomed foreign graduate students because of their desire to attract the very best talent for both their programs and for the development of future faculty. Nationality is at best a minor consideration if an institution is seeking excellence in a competitive global environment.
The longer-term implications of these actions and trends are considerable. In the first instance, the pipeline for top researchers and professors is being constricted. (Recall that PhD programs are, in effect, a workforce development program for higher education. Demonstrating one’s ability to conduct research that leads to new knowledge is fundamental to a PhD degree.) Another implication is the production of research in general. Fewer researchers with less funding will mean that groundbreaking research will be more limited with broad effects on American and global society.
US higher education was once considered the gold standard for academic excellence. The top US institutions were seen as leading the world in many ways. Their brands were highly visible and extremely attractive to foreign students at all levels. Many institutions outside the US have sought and gained US institutional accreditation as a way to validate their own quality. Many specialized accreditors like ABET were considered the absolute in best practice. Together, these perceptions and the perceived relative weakness of many universities outside the US enabled the US to attract some of the best minds in the world.
Things have changed, even before the more recent US government actions noted above. Universities in many nations have grown in scale and quality. While much of the attention has been focused on the growth of Chinese universities, there are important gains in many countries. One result is that students have options. There are excellent institutions and programs outside the US.
China and India together account for 30% of all internationally mobile students. South Korea, Vietnam, and Nigeria are also major exporters of college students. How do the topmost student-sending countries respond to this fast-changing US scenario?
China, India, and Gulf nations are rapidly expanding local higher education capacity, including welcoming international branch campuses (IBCs). China has 50 international branch campuses inside China and Hong Kong. India, which opened the door to IBCs just three years ago, already has 30+ foreign universities (from the UK, Australia, the USA, and the like) in various stages of establishing IBCs.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been particularly active in the IBC space. For example, Abu Dhabi now hosts two internationally significant institutions of this type, New York University Abu Dhabi and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.
Dubai has encouraged IBCs and now has 37+ international branch campuses to provide alternatives for outbound students from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Central Asia. The percentage of student visa rejections in Dubai is much lower than in the US, Canada, and the UK for students from these regions. For students who are typically keen on completing a good international undergraduate education and aim to pursue an international career, the UAE offers an excellent alternative to North America, Europe, and Australia.
A significant percentage of outbound graduate students are high-achieving and high-potential and have proven to contribute to the entrepreneurial and innovation cultures of their host countries over the past decades. However, if such high-potential students face significant barriers unrelated to their research, they tend to find good alternatives in their home countries or elsewhere. There is no doubt that international students who want to pursue research and related careers in the US will lose somewhat in their individual careers. However, most of these students will find career success elsewhere and the US will be the aggregate loser.
In this context, the significant growth in international students in Germany, particularly in STEM fields, is noteworthy, as Germany offers an excellent alternative to the US for such high-potential students. International student enrollment in Germany has grown by 43% in the past four years, now comprising about 13% of Germany’s total higher education.
The increasing availability of world-class online degrees – particularly at the Master’s level – is yet another option for many international students who face visa challenges and constantly changing rules in host countries.
The evolution of higher education from an exclusive privilege to a mass-access system has redefined universities as market-driven enterprises. The universities and the national systems that respond well to students as consumers – demanding career ROI, value, flexibility (anytime, anywhere), career-aligned curriculum, and respect as full fee-paying customers – are thriving in the global marketplace.
While democratic countries tend to think in election cycles and impose such restrictions, international students are beginning to vote with their decades-long careers in mind. The marketplace will adjust to changing realities. International students, by and large, will pursue their higher education dreams and find alternatives. At the end, the ultimate winners will be systems and nations that welcome the best and the brightest students to their campuses and the losers will be those who create hurdle after hurdle to such students.
When we observe the changes in the university hierarchies globally – using well-established metrics such as international accreditation/benchmarking, graduate employment, research publications and patents, ranking, and student demand/acceptance ratios, and the like, it is clear that the great higher education divide between the USA and the rest of the world is narrowing rapidly.
Of course, global growth in educational levels and opportunities is a good thing for the world as a whole. Additionally, increased competition among institutions – especially the top institutions –should lead to even better teaching and research outcomes. The best American institutions should still prosper in this environment, but the US as a whole may lose its gold standard brand.
There is, however, a larger implication of these changes for the United States. Holding aside consideration of college and university enrollments and finances, having fewer top international students means fewer US students and institutions will benefit from the value of interacting with people from other countries. The importance of peer education has long been understood, but the value of that education is eroded if students are of uniform nationality. American citizens generally have had less exposure to the world than citizens of other, more outward looking nations. Fewer than half of Americans have passports and many have only used them rarely. And while many American colleges and institutions encourage study abroad and related programs, the majority of American students graduate without such experiences. The presence of international students on campuses helps to offset these limitations.
In 1990, the late Harvard political science professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr. coined the term “soft power” to describe a form of national power not based on coercion or payment, but instead on attraction. In simple terms, he contrasted coercive power (sticks) and payment power (carrots) with the power to attract (honey). In Nye’s conception, soft power is the capacity to influence others through culture, values and persuasion. American presidents of both parties as far back as Truman believed in the power of American values, ideals and culture as a “force for good in the world.” These beliefs were part of a shared vision of American leadership and responsibility.
Higher education was always seen as central to the development of soft power. Students came to the US from all over the world to gain their education. While some stayed in the US, most returned to their home nations with a more realistic understanding of American society and values. This was not a starry-eyed perspective of America as “ a City on the Hill,” a beacon to the world. Rather, it was more basic: an understanding and appreciation for the good and the bad of America. These people were part of a much broader awareness of the more intangible sources of power that come from a sense of national cohesion, a culture with universalistic foundations and an appreciation for international institutions. These people were, by and large, America’s friends. And all who studied in this way were able to see and deal with the United States in reasonable and rational ways.
In the words of Timthy Frye, soft power has not been” holstered” by an America First world view, but has been “dismantled.” This crisis for soft power is a broad American crisis. While its immediate effects are felt disproportionately by higher education, the true costs in reduced understanding and fewer partnerships will affect everyone. America is relinquishing a longstanding, vital international role.
Joseph Nye’s seminal work is Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, New York, Basic Books, 1990. See also: Joseph S. Nye, Jr. The Powers to Lead, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008 and Is the American Century Over? Cambridge (UK) Polity Press, 2015. Professor Nye died in 2025.
Timothy Frye’s quote is taken from his article Reflections on Soft Power, Columbia University, Harriman Magazine of the Harriman Institute, 2026
Dr. Chet Haskell serves as Co-Head for the College Partnerships and Alliances for the Edu Alliance Group. Chet is a higher education leader with extensive experience in academic administration, institutional strategy, and governance. He recently completed six and a half years as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and University Provost at Antioch University, where he played a central role in creating the Coalition for the Common Good with Otterbein University. Earlier in his career, he spent 13 years at Harvard University in senior academic positions, including Executive Director of the Center for International Affairs and Associate Dean of the Kennedy School of Government.
He later served as Dean of the College at Simmons College and as President of both the Monterey Institute of International Studies and Cogswell Polytechnical College, successfully guiding both institutions through mergers. An experienced consultant, Dr. Haskell has advised universities and ministries of education in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East on issues of finance, strategy, and accreditation. His teaching and research have focused on leadership and nonprofit governance, with a particular emphasis on helping smaller institutions adapt to financial and structural challenges. He earned DPA and MPA degrees from the University of Southern California, an MA from the University of Virginia, and an AB cum laude from Harvard University.
Dr. Senthil Nathan is the Co-Founder of Edu Alliance and a senior higher education leader with over 30 years of experience in the UAE and the broader Middle East. He has successfully directed more than 50 Edu Alliance projects for over 20 universities in the region, including Khalifa University (KU), Zayed University (ZU), United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), and NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD).
Senthil played a pivotal role in the establishment and growth of HCT, the UAE’s second university, where he served for 24 years in academic and leadership roles—faculty, Chair, Dean, and College Director—before becoming Deputy Vice Chancellor of Planning and Administration for 8 years. In this capacity, he led strategic planning, budgeting, operations, HR, and workforce development across 17 campuses. As Dean of Engineering and Health Sciences, he pioneered more than 35 industry-sponsored programs and spearheaded commercial initiatives as Chief Planning Officer for CERT Technology Park.
He earned his Ph.D., Civil Engineering – Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA his M.S., Civil Engineering – Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India and B.E. (Honors), Engineering – National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India.
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