More international students were coming – then COVID hit

First-time enrolment by international students in United States graduate programmes rose by 3.8% between 2018 and 2019, reversing a two-year decline, finds a report from the US Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). But the council worries that the growth might again reverse as a consequence of COVID-19 restrictions, writes Sara Reardon for Nature.

The report also found that the past decade has seen rapid growth in the number of students from minority ethnic groups enrolled in US graduate programmes. Yet these groups are still under-represented compared with the general US population. The CGS, which represents nearly 500 institutions in the United States and Canada, and 27 in other nations, surveyed 561 US institutions about their graduate enrolment numbers between 2009 and 2019, breaking down student data by ethnicity, gender, field of study and other demographics.

The year-on-year increase in international enrolments is a surprise, says CGS President Suzanne Ortega, particularly in light of visa restrictions imposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump. In July, following a lawsuit by more than 200 universities, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Cambridge, the administration scrapped plans to deny visas to international students whose institutions offered only online instruction. Universities have also fought travel bans restricting people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Full report on the Nature site