Colleges face financial struggles as Trump policies send international enrolment plummeting

The extent of the change in enrolment will not be clear until the fall. Some groups have forecast a decline of as much as 40 per cent, with a huge impact on college budgets and the wider US economy.

International students face new scrutiny on several fronts As part of a broader effort to reshape higher education, President Donald Trump has pressed colleges to limit their numbers of international students and heightened scrutiny of student visas.

His administration has moved to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activism, and new student visa appointments were put on hold for weeks as it ramped up vetting of applicants’ social media.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said it will propose a rule that would put new limits on the time foreign students can stay in the US The policies have introduced severe financial instability for colleges, said Justin Gest, a professor at George Mason University who studies the politics of immigration.
Foreign students are not eligible for federal financial aid and often pay full price for tuition — double or even triple the in-state rate paid by domestic students at public universities.

“To put it more dollars and cents-wise, if an international student comes in and pays USD 80,000 a year in tuition, that gives universities the flexibility to offer lower fees and more scholarship money to American students,” Gest said.

A Sudanese student barely made it to the US for the start of classes Ahmed Ahmed, a Sudanese student, nearly didn’t make it to the US for his freshman year at the University of Rochester.

The Trump administration in June announced a travel ban on 12 countries, including Sudan. Diplomatic officials assured Ahmed he could still enter the US because his visa was issued before the ban. But when he tried to board a flight to leave for the US from Uganda, where he stayed with family during the summer, he was turned away and advised to contact an embassy about his visa.

With the help of the University of Rochester’s international office, Ahmed was able to book another flight.
At Rochester, where he received a scholarship to study electrical engineering, Ahmed, 19, said he feels supported by the staff. But he also finds himself on edge and understands why other students might not want to subject themselves to the scrutiny in the US, particularly those who are entirely paying their own way.
“I feel like I made it through, but I’m one of the last people to make it through,” he said.

Colleges are taking steps to blunt the impact In recent years, international students have made up about 30 per cent of enrolment at Central Missouri, which has a total of around 12,800 students. In anticipation of the hit to international enrolment, Central Missouri cut a cost-of-living raise for employees. It has pushed off infrastructure improvements planned for its campus and has been looking for other ways to cut costs.
Small schools — typically classified as those with no more than 5,000 students — tend to have less financial flexibility and will be especially vulnerable, said Dick Startz, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lee University, a Christian institution with 3,500 students in Tennessee, is expecting 50 to 60 international students enrolled this fall, down from 82 the previous school year, representing a significant drop in revenue for the school, said Roy Y. Chan, the university’s director of graduate studies. The school already has increased tuition by 20 per cent over the past five years to account for a decrease in overall enrollment, he said.

“Since we’re a smaller liberal arts campus, tuition cost is our main, primary revenue,” Chan said, as opposed to government funding or donations. The strains on international enrolment only add to distress for schools already on the financial brink.