Interest in studying in US dropped 42% in January

Interest in studying in the United States by international graduate students plummeted by more than 40% since the first week of January 2025, when the Republicans took control of the US Senate and House of Representatives, and the nation prepared for the the inauguration of US President Donald J Trump on 24 January, data released to University World News by StudyPortals shows.

This decline is all the more dramatic because, according to a study released last November by NAFSA: Association of International Educators, international enrolment at American colleges and universities had risen 6.6% from 2023 to 2024 and 11.5% the year before that.

The steep decline in interest in studying in the US could cut tens of billions of dollars from the American economy, as 2023 to 2024 international students, most of whom are graduate students, contribute US$43 billion to the American economy, NAFSA reported.

At the same time, the number of American students seeking information about leaving the US to study abroad remains at historic highs, at approximately a five-fold increase over StudyPortals’ normal volumes and comparable to the period directly after Trump’s election in November 2024.

“The demand for foreign students looking to study a masters or PhD in the USA has dropped a dramatic 42% since the beginning of the year,” said Edwin van Rest, co-founder and CEO of StudyPortals, an online portal based in the Netherlands that has been used by 55 million prospective international students from 240 countries to search for information about international programmes and to apply to them.

“Also notably, growing visa rejection rates are playing a significant role in dampening demand. The US is risking not only billions of direct GDP but also losing a critical flow of talent that historically has had such a critical contribution to research, entrepreneurship and corporate leadership,” he stated.

Challenging higher education landscape

For prospective international students, understanding the changing higher education landscape in the United States presents a challenge.

“NAFSA (the Association of International Educators) is working with our partners in order to understand the changing federal policies,” Fanta Aw, the organisation’s executive director and CEO, told University World News from Senegal.

“But it’s entirely understandable that students thinking of coming to the United States are confused. We keep saying that what is needed is greater clarity by the United States,” Aw noted.

Since Trump’s return to power, there have been more than a dozen executive orders (EOs) directed at education itself that ban federal support for DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes or offices.

These include an order declaring that in the United States, there are only two genders (male or female as determined at birth) and, thus, banning trans athletes in women’s sports, and another authorising investigations of universities for antisemitism.

Other EOs rescind EOs signed by former president Joe Biden that supported Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities, which orders colleges and universities to protect free speech and authorised the removal of federal grants that do not do so.

Additionally, the Department of Education has opened investigations to determine whether more than 100 colleges and universities have effective policies against antisemitism and protect Jewish students.

Uncertainties due to funding cuts

Equally important, said Van Rest, are uncertainties caused by tens of millions of dollars of funding cuts.

“Students, especially international students who are investing a great deal of money and are going to be far from home, need to know that their future at the schools they apply to will be stable. Hundreds of millions of dollars in US government cuts splashed across the world’s newspapers do not suggest stability,” he noted.

Funding for university-based research does not come from a department; the United States does not have the equivalent of a national ministry of higher education. Rather, funding comes from a number of different departments.

As University World News reported on 30 January, in the space of a few hours, the six-day-old Trump administration announced that it was freezing funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which in 2023 made grants to more than 37,500 researchers in hundreds of universities, and other agencies that partner with universities, across the country.

Within hours, the directive was reversed.

‘Lights in labs will literally go out’

On 11 February, two federal district judges placed an injunction on a new regulation promulgated by the NIH that would cap indirect costs of projects at 15% – even if, as was the case in many programmes that involve dangerous substances – the department had agreed that the indirect costs could be many times higher.

“Make no mistake. This announcement will mean less research. Lights in labs nationwide will literally go out. Researchers and staff will lose their jobs,” David J Skorton MD, president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the organisation’s Chief Scientific Officer Elena Fuentes-Afflick MD, said in a statement before the courts stayed the cuts pending a trial.

On 12 March, Tennessee State University (TSU) confirmed to USA Today that, although US$23 million of US$45 million that was cut by the US Department of Agriculture (DoA) would be restored, federal grants amounting to US$115 million are likely to be frozen or suspended.

Sixty-two full-time employees are funded by these grants, which partially fund another 112 employees. (TSU, one of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, was, over the course of a decade, the Biden Administration determined, underfunded by US$2.1 billion.)

The DoA has cut US$113 million (78%) of the research funds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, one of the nation’s premier agricultural institutions. On 14 March, Tommy Enright, communications director for the Wisconsin Farmers Union, told the Isthmus, an independent online newspaper, these cuts will mean lost solutions to “controlling pests, improving soil health, or adjusting to extreme weather”.

Major universities like the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Harvard, Duke, Boston University, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cornell have all announced hiring freezes or pauses due to what Stanford’s president, Jonathan Levin, and provost, Jenny Martinez, euphemistically refer to as “potential financial uncertainties are mounting for universities across the United States”.

Graduate admissions have been reduced, paused or suspended at dozens of world-renowned universities, including: MIT; UPenn; University of Southern California; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

On 14 March, the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts, announced it was rescinding dozens of acceptance letters.

Although her research on uterine cancer had no connection to the pro-Palestinian protests that rocked Columbia University last year, the decision of the Department of Education to remove US$400 million in grants to the university because it was unable to protect Jewish students is forcing the closure of Daniella Fodera’s PhD research.

On 15 March she posted the termination notice she received from the NIH: “The HYPOCRISY of it all is that we scientists are expected to be unbiased and objective and the termination of my grant was done without that same consideration. I was TARGETED as a student researcher at Columbia studying women’s health.”

Fodera’s experience is an instance of what Thomas P Kimbis, executive director and CEO of the National Postdoctoral Association, told University World News about the precarious position postdocs are now in.

“Postdocs are particularly vulnerable to funding freezes because they are at the beginning of their professional careers as newly minted PhDs or MDs, have yet to establish independent offices or laboratories, and lack the salaries or benefits that permanent hires enjoy.”

He characterised the cutting off of funding for postdocs as being akin to “ordering farmers to let their fields go fallow right before harvest”.

Admissions stall due to grant cuts

April Kaull, executive director of communications for strategic communications and marketing, responded to an email asking about the decision by West Virginia University Health Science to limit admissions because an expected US$12 million grant from the NIH will not be forthcoming by explaining both the macro situation and how the university is dealing with it.

“The West Virginia University Health Sciences Office of Research and Graduate Education is limiting admission to its PhD programmes due to the unforeseen budgetary challenges resulting from proposed cuts to federal research funding. We communicated with students who had not yet signed and returned WVU’s acceptance letter – a relatively small percentage of the total cohort.

“We’ve also met with the students and faculty in the affected areas, and we will continue to support our existing students, faculty and staff and current ongoing research initiatives. If circumstances change in the future, admission to these PhD programmes will be reevaluated,” Kaull said.

“Indirect costs are partial reimbursements for real costs essential to support human and physical infrastructure required for university research programmes.

“Without support for these costs, our nation’s research universities cannot maintain research programmes essential for continued national prosperity,” she explained.

Surveying this confusing landscape, Van Rest wrote in an email to University World News: “It goes without saying that many students who intended to apply to programmes that the United States government partially funded will not be attending them now that government cuts have led to their closure.”

In an email to EOS, an online magazine published by the American Geophysical Union, Emily Miller, the Association of American Universities’ deputy vice president for institutional policy, spoke of the devastating effect of the federal cuts both to institutions and younger scholars.

“Admitting students into PhD programmes represents a substantial long-term financial commitment. The financial uncertainties stemming from agencies withholding new grant awards and potentially eliminating research lines following executive order reviews have complicated these decisions significantly.

“These substantial funding reductions will adversely impact early-career scholars and impede the transformational research necessary to address the complex challenges facing our nation and the world,” she stated.

US reputation as postgrad study destination plummets

Both Van Rest and Aw are concerned about the harm America’s reputation as an educational destination is facing.

“American universities offer excellent education. And American universities, as well as American society, benefit from international students who contribute to the American and local economies. Universities benefit because of new and excellent students,” said Aw.

“But the reality is that students have other options. We used to speak of the ‘Big Four’ – US, UK, Canada and Australia – now there really is the ‘Big Twenty’. Students don’t have to go to the United States.

“My fear is that today’s confusion will end up sending the message that America is becoming more insular. That it is not interested in welcoming students from around the world,” said Aw, who also noted that the firing of thousands of federal workers has a negative impact on US higher education institutions.

Among the harms that Van Rest fears are that the United States will reduce the number of international student visas it issues, which, in the age of social media, will quickly become known.

“Visa rejections can shatter students’ dreams pretty late in the process,” he wrote in an email to University World News, “news around them travels fast.”

Like Aw, Van Rest cautions about the outcome of the combination of anxious students and the fact that the American colleges and universities are competing against other desirable destinations.

“Students around the world are anxious, and many disappointed, including their parents. The US holds many of the world’s best universities,” he says. “It inspired many dreams of building a future in a leading ecosystem of entrepreneurship, innovation, business, and the example of democracy protecting and elevating the rest of the world.

“Now these families are starting to doubt if their dream towards the US is still feasible, or even desirable, or if they should reconsider their destination preferences for more stable, more welcoming destinations like the UK, Europe or even Asia. University staff in the US are obviously anxious and frustrated too.

“The US has so much to offer, needs the talent and has unique capacity available to host more talent,” said Van Rest.

Since approximately 58% of America’s postdocs come from outside the country, Kimbis is concerned about what a significant reduction in these postdocs – many already feel at risk because of their immigration status – means for America, which he characterises as “the gold standard for researchers across the world.”

He added: “They devote talent, sweat and expertise to their passions – scientific and research breakthroughs. We’re at an inflection point where we can cede that leadership position to others, including our economic or military rivals.”