US institutions are doubling down on international student recruitment as they brace for enrolment declines in the coming year, IIE’s spring snapshot has revealed.
Amid the unpredictability of Donald Trump’s second presidency, IIE’s 2025 Spring Snapshot has revealed an uncertain picture of international student enrolment for the coming academic year, with US institutions anticipating an end to the sustained growth of recent years
While the preliminary data suggests enrolment figures are likely to fall, “it remains too early to determine the magnitude of potential declines”, wrote the report’s authors.
International student applications for the year showed a near-even split: 32% of institutions saw increases, 32% remained flat, and 35% saw declines.
This contrasts with the previous year when 53% of institutions reported a rise in applications and 30% said they had remained the same.
While 60% expected international undergraduate enrolment to rise or stay steady, the picture was a near-even split for graduate enrolment, with half of institutions anticipating declines.
Carried out from mid-May to early June, the survey comes at a turbulent time for US international education, rocked by a near month-long pause in new visa interviews and new social media vetting rules contributing to ongoing delays and cancellations.
Meanwhile, reports of visa issuance this spring paint a gloomy picture, with May 2025 seeing a 22% drop in student visa issuance as compared to the previous year, according to State Department data.
The declines are particularly concerning given the widely-reported on impending domestic “enrolment cliff”, with government figures showing undergraduate enrolment declining by more than two million between 2010 and 2022.
Among institutions expecting international student declines, top concerns identified in IIE’s survey included application barriers (87%), students choosing other countries (71%), US port-of-entry issues (69%), and visa status uncertainty (68%).
Nearly a quarter (23%) of institutions reported that students chose to leave the country after Trump’s mass revocation of students’ SEVIS status this spring, totalling 176 individuals.
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