Arrival of International Students Dropped by 19 Percent in August

The number of students arriving from Asia decreased by 24 percent, with India and China accounting for a significant portion.

People walk past Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in Princeton, N.J., on Nov. 20, 2015. Dominick Reuter/Reuters

The number of international students traveling to the United States in August decreased by about a fifth compared with August 2024—the largest drop in arrivals recorded after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal government data on foreign students studying in the United States do not show a comparable drop in international students.

The drop in arrivals follows several actions taken by the Trump administration, including additional vetting of applicants’ social media activity, a pause in visa appointments, travel bans, and deportation orders for foreign students who overstay or violate their visas.

To prepare for the next semester, international students studying in the United States generally arrive by August. More than 1.2 million international students study at U.S. universities.

The largest proportion come from India (more than 380,000 students) and China (more than 246,000). Arrivals from these countries also dropped significantly; 44.5 percent fewer Indian students and 12.4 percent fewer Chinese students traveled to the United States in August 2025.

Arrival data through ports of entry are collected by the National Travel and Tourism Office in the Department of Commerce. The reporting is one of the first available data points on the number of international students studying in the United States this year.

However, the drop could also reflect a change in behavior by international students already in the country, who may have chosen to stay in the United States over the summer to avoid the risk of reentry, even if they have valid visas. The Commerce Department’s data do not distinguish between new students and returning students.

Official enrollment data for the 2025 school year for international students are not yet available. Nor are there data on the number student visas issued by the State Department.

According to a report from the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers, which belongs to the Washington-based nonprofit Association of International Educators, fewer student visas are being issued in 2025 than were issued in 2024. The standard full-time student visa, the F1, was issued 12 percent fewer times from January to April 2025 than in that period in 2024, and in May, 22 percent fewer visas were issued than were issued in May 2024.

Travel and visa bans affected students in a number of countries, even after travel bans were lifted. Arrivals from Iran (which declined by 86 percent), Ghana (51 percent), and Nigeria (48 percent) dropped the most.