Foreign Student Enrollment Set to Drop Nearly 10% This Fall — And Florida's Latino-Serving Colleges Face a Bigger Hit Than Most

Graduating Harvard student Victor Flores and others rally in support of international students during the Harvard Students for Freedom rally at the Harvard University campus in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 27, 2025. Harvard students protested Tuesday after the US government said it intends to cancel all remaining financial contracts with the university, President Donald Trump's latest attempt to force the prestigious institution to submit to unprecedented oversight. (Credit: Photo by Rick Friedman / AFP) (Photo by RICK FRIEDMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

A Steep Drop, By the Numbers

U.S. colleges could enroll as many as 111,000 fewer international students this fall — a 9.5% decline — under a projection published this week by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and research firm JB International. If the upper end of that range holds, international enrollment would slide from roughly 1.17 million students in 2025-26 to about 1.06 million this coming year — a contraction not seen outside the pandemic era in more than a decade.