Colleges experience financial hardships as Trump policies drop foreign enrolment by half

The drop is a blow to the bottom line for Central Missouri, a small public school that lives near its margins with an endowment of just USD 65 million. International students usually generate almost a quarter of its tuition income.

International student after international student informed the University of Central Missouri this summer that they were unable to obtain a visa, and several had trouble obtaining an interview for one. Despite demand being as strong as ever, half as many new international graduate students attended fall classes as did last year.

The drop is a blow to the bottom line for Central Missouri, a small public institution that runs close to its margins with an endowment of just USD 65 million. International students usually contribute almost a quarter of its tuition income.

US tightens visa rules for international students: Key highlights

"We can't subsidize students as much at home if we don't have as many international students who are generating income for us," said Roger Best, the university's president. Pockets of a fall in international students have disturbed colleges throughout the US. Colleges with high foreign student enrollments and low endowments have minimal monetary padding to insulate them from sharp declines in tuition dollars.

International students account for more than 20 per cent of enrollment at over 100 colleges with less than USD 250,000 in endowment per student, based on an Associated Press analysis. They are mainly small Christian colleges but also comprise big universities like Northeastern and Carnegie Mellon.

How much the change in enrollment will be is not known until the fall. Some have projected a drop as much as 40 per cent, which would have a massive effect on college budgets as well as the broader US economy.

International students are under increased scrutiny on a variety of fronts As part of an expansive initiative to reconfigure higher education, President Donald Trump has pushed universities to restrict their enrollment of international students and increased scrutiny over student visas.

His administration has attempted to deport foreign students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, and new student visa appointments were suspended for weeks as it cranked up screening of applicants' social media.

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that it will suggest a regulation that would impose new restrictions on how long foreign students may remain in the US The policies have brought severe fiscal uncertainty for colleges, George Mason University professor Justin Gest, who researches the politics of immigration, stated.

Foreign students cannot receive federal student aid and usually have to pay full freight for tuition — twice or three times the in-state rate that domestic students pay at public universities. 

"To frame it more dollars-and-cents, when an international student comes in and pays USD 80,000 per year in tuition, that gives the universities the room to give discounts in terms of fees and more scholarship funding to American students," Gest stated.

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 imposed a travel ban on 12 nations, including Sudan. Diplomatic officials told Ahmed he would still be able to enter the US because his visa had been issued prior to the ban. When he attempted to board a flight to depart for the US from Uganda, where he spent the summer with relatives, he was denied and told to contact an embassy regarding his visa.