Earlier this yr, The PIE Information reported on an error present in federal datasets that appeared to point out falling worldwide scholar numbers from August 2024 to the current.
The wrong SEVIS information painted an image of dramatically declining worldwide scholar numbers, which then flatlined in an uncommon trend – with information showing to point out an 11% enrolment decline between March 2024 and March 2025.
In actuality, the variety of worldwide college students within the US was rising at a gentle fee, with corrected information printed by the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) on July 4 displaying a development fee of 6.5% from September 2023 to September 2024.
In September final yr, the wrong figures had been over 200,000 college students quick of the particular totals, in accordance with evaluation by Boston Faculty professor Chris Glass.
The actual information has revealed a brand new all-time excessive for worldwide scholar numbers within the US, reaching almost 1.3 million in September 2024.
What’s extra, final yr’s development fee of 6.5% is greater than double IIE’s predicted 3% development fee, specified by its 2024 Fall Snapshot survey.
After India surpassing China because the US’s high sending vacation spot in 2023, the hole between the 2 sending international locations continues to widen, with new SEVIS information for June 2025 displaying virtually 143,000 extra college students from India than China.
Nonetheless, you will need to word that the figures embrace each worldwide college students enrolled at US schools and people engaged on Optionally available Sensible Coaching (OPT).
The US is the one one of many ‘large 4’ research locations to incorporate the post-graduation work stream in general scholar figures, and stakeholders have referred to as for the 2 to be disaggregated to assist institutional recruitment plans and wider sector advocacy about profession alternatives.
“It’s odd to me that OPT members are routinely characterised as college students in distinguished reporting,” stated Eddie West, assistant vice-president, worldwide affairs, at California State College, Fresno.
“Counting F-1 visa-holders engaged on OPT as college students makes virtually no sense and is an artefact of how they first arrived. They’re workers within the US workforce,” he added.
The difficulty of together with OPT within the US’s general scholar inhabitants was laid naked final yr, after IIE’s Open Doorways report for 2023/24 revealed an all-time excessive of 1.1 million worldwide college students within the US.
As IIE separates the 2 counts, nearer evaluation might subsequently reveal that whereas OPT had elevated by 22%, new enrolments had solely risen by 0.1% – a vital element that was getting misplaced in distinguished reporting.
Counting F-1 visa-holders engaged on OPT as college students makes virtually no sense and is an artefact of how they first arrived
Eddie West, California State College, Fresno
In the meantime, although historic information helps inform tactical implementation of recruitment methods, in accordance with Intead CEO Ben Waxman, schools ought to give attention to the current and make choices with what they’ve out there.
“The macro pattern numbers make good headlines however don’t essentially inform how a selected establishment ought to transfer ahead… What works for particular person establishments is retaining eyes on the ball,” Waxman informed The PIE.
“Backing away from concerted recruitment efforts just about ensures that the declines in scholar quantity all of us anticipate will land squarely in your establishment,” he warned.
The anticipated declines highlighted by Waxman confer with the drop in F-1 visa issuance already being felt by US establishments because the damaging impact of Donald Trump’s hostile insurance policies take maintain.
In Might 2025, there was a 22% drop in scholar visa issuance as in comparison with the earlier yr, in accordance with State Division information.
And this doesn’t account for the influence of the pausing of recent visa appointments – which stretched from Might 27 to June 26 – and continues to trigger extreme backlogs and cancelled visa appointments.
What’s extra, the growth of social media screening for scholar and change customer visas is inflicting additional delays, as curiosity within the US as a research vacation spot plummets below Trump.
Amid the administration’s assaults on Harvard, in addition to its proposals to implement cut-off dates on scholar visas, its attraction amongst worldwide college students has fallen to its lowest stage because the pandemic, with 73% of establishments surveyed by NAFSA anticipating fewer worldwide college students this fall.
Based on Glass, the appointment pause coupled with expanded screening measures might translate into a possible worldwide scholar decline of 7-11% within the upcoming semester, as in comparison with 2024.
Relying on future insurance policies, “we may even see fluctuations in 2026 resulting from deferrals … akin to once we noticed pent-up development specific itself after COVID was extra firmly within the rear-view mirror”, instructed West, although he stated continued development within the short-term was “extremely unlikely”.
The macro pattern numbers make good headlines however don’t essentially inform how a selected establishment ought to transfer ahead
Ben Waxman, Intead
With the preliminary error being resolved, stakeholders have acknowledged the difficulties of sustaining such a big database.
“One thing so huge in scope, advanced and fluid as worldwide scholar mobility and enrolment isn’t any simple feat, particularly within the States,” stated West, including that he was extra involved about “long-standing deficiencies”, pointing to Australia’s PRISMS system as a much more refined and exact monitoring methodology.
Elsewhere, considerations stay across the division’s lack of transparency, which has left many unanswered questions on how the division will guarantee there are not any future information failures of an analogous form.
The timeframe of the glitch has additionally raised eyebrows, with virtually a yr passing from when the information irregularities emerged in August 2024 to once they had been faraway from the web site in April 2025 and at last corrected this July.
What’s extra, it’s nonetheless unclear whether or not anybody on the division was conscious of the glitch earlier than DHS was notified of it by EnglishUSA in mid-April, with Mark Algren of the College of Kansas who observed the error saying he had “no concept why somebody didn’t catch it”.
The PIE reached out to DHS however is but to obtain a response.
