There are early signs that the number of college students who travel to and from the United States to study is changing in the wake of the 2024 election.
Early indicators point to three types of changes to international study:
- International student interest in coming to the U.S. is down following Donald Trump’s re-election.
- U.S. students are expressing more interest in studying abroad.
- The Trump administration could establish new hurdles for international student exchange programs in both directions, which some colleges are already planning for.
International Students Are Wary Of Coming To The U.S.
According to post-election data from Keystone Education Group, 58 percent of European students say that Donald Trump’s reelection has had a negative impact on their desire to study in the U.S. Based on a survey of 600 prospective students, Keystone found that 42 percent of students from around the world are less likely to study in the U.S. today than they were before the election and 41 percent are uncertain about how Trump’s reelection will impact their decision.
It’s difficult to know how much of this early trepidation will translate to sustained reductions in international students studying in the U.S.
Mirka Martel, Head of Research, Evaluation & Learning at the Institute of International Education stresses that meaningful shifts in study abroad trends are generally responses to more concrete changes.
“Open Doors data show that student flows are typically affected only by actual shifts in policy or due to other intangible factors, and that students are largely unaffected by shifting perceptions or rhetoric,” Martel says.
If President Trump’s first term in office is any indication, this early trepidation among students may be fleeting. There was a reduction in new international students after Trump’s 2016 election, according to the 2017 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, marking an end to a twelve year stretch of annual growth. But international study recovered after that year and began climbing again until the global pandemic caused study abroad to plummet around the world.
According to Martel, “The largest drops in the last 23 years have been due to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and then more recently the COVID-19 pandemic. Generally, the numbers of students have either increased or been stable.”
As of fall 2023, study abroad numbers had more than recovered in the U.S., and the 2024 Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange reported that the U.S. hosted an all-time high of 1.1 million international students in the past academic year.
Advocates are hopeful that the post-election dip in international student interest will follow historical trends and rebound quickly.
U.S. Student Interest In Travelling Abroad Spiked After The Election
International students are not the only ones who are wary of being in the U.S. right now.
U.S. student inquiries into studying elsewhere spiked five-fold after the election, according to the international education platform Studyportals. That spike has since leveled out, but U.S. student interest in overseas Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees is still 20-30 percent higher than the 90-day rolling average.
“It is unprecedented to see a rapid shift in interest of this magnitude,” says Edwin van Rest, CEO and Co-founder of Studyportals. “We saw similar trends in the last Trump presidency, but not at this scale.”
This shift may be a win for diplomacy and cultural proficiency in the long term.
According to van Rest, “It would be a positive development to have more US students studying abroad. It would make international education more symmetrical, and international education in general promotes more tolerance, understanding and peace in the world.”
The incoming Trump Administration has not explicitly endorsed any changes to policies that impact U.S. students going abroad.
The Trump Administration Could Enact Policies That Restrict Incoming Travel
Even if international student interest rebounds, the Trump administration may erect material obstacles to current and prospective international students.
Just over a week after the election, the state university system of Florida decided to cut ties with 7 “countries of concern,” as reported by News Service of Florida. The change was ostensibly in compliance with a 2023 state law that prevents certain foreign entities from doing business or owning property in the state. It will impact study abroad agreements with institutions in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria.
Florida is just one state, but its education policies have been working in tandem with Trump priorities for the past several years. Many of the recent changes to the public education system in Florida have served as a model for other states, from book bans to anti-DEI laws. In fact, many of the policies that Donald Trump explicitly endorsed in his education platform are national versions of policies already under way in Florida, including universal school choice, federal funding for religious schools, and a return to sex- and gender-based discrimination.
If other states decide to follow Florida’s lead on terminating study abroad programs with certain countries, it would not be unprecedented.
Colleges Are Bracing For Impact And Preparing International Students
Some colleges in the U.S. are already taking steps to protect their current and prospective international community.
In advance of the Thanksgiving break, the UMass Amherst Office of International Affairs issued an advisory to its international community urging anyone who is traveling for the holiday to return to campus before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20, 2025. The advisory reminds all students, staff, scholars and faculty under UMass immigration sponsorship of the travel bans enacted in 2017 by President Trump and his apparent interest in revisiting those policies. UMass Amherst stated clearly that no such policy is in effect today and that its recommendation was simply a precaution.
The International Students Office at MIT also sent a message to its international community of the possibility that new travel restrictions could be enacted as early at January 2025 and that the presidential transition could bring extended processing times for entry visas.
Most colleges have not yet issued warnings such as these, but they will likely be watching for signals from the incoming administration on how to plan for the future.