International student enrollment at the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology fell sharply this academic year.
Both schools reported a drop of 300 enrolled international students, accelerating a decline that began the year before and returning both campuses to pandemic-level totals.
The falloff coincides with the Trump administration's push to reshape higher education and restrict immigration. And with the impending “enrollment cliff,” a projected sustained drop in U.S. high school graduates beginning next year that will further reduce the number of college-bound students.
Beyond lost tuition, those changes could have effects on research, program prestige and staffing. This as UR also confirmed it is curtailing Fall 2026 admissions to some doctoral programs because of changes in federal funding.
“I imagine that, you know, our standing as a global institution now, in the United States, under this presidential administration, could take a hit,” said Emefa Amoah, a graduate student union organizer at UR.
Both institutions declined interview requests to discuss the enrollment numbers.
Newly released data from UR show the university welcomed just over 860 new international students in the summer and fall terms. Nearly a third of UR students hail from outside the U.S. And close to half of all graduate students, records show. It's about one in 10 overall at RIT, which has a larger student body.
Speaking last summer, then-President David Munson had said RIT expected to be down “a minimum of 200 international students in the incoming class, and who knows, the next year we might see that drop by another 200 and so if we're going to have a smaller student body, we need to be proactive in planning a slightly smaller faculty and staff."
Nationally, private colleges are seeing continued growth in undergraduate enrollment of international students. It’s the once-steadily growing graduate enrollment that declined this past fall.
UR did not provide a breakdown of undergraduate versus graduate students, or what countries saw the greatest enrollment decline. More than 80 potential students told the university their visa applications got denied.
The university has pointed to graduate and international enrollment as “essential stabilizing forces.” Yet, last summer, Provost Nicole Sampson wrote to faculty and staff that the administration would be evaluating Ph.D. admissions for fall 2026, noting other institutions were deferring or rescinding admissions over concerns about continued research funding.
At least two UR doctoral programs, in the Eastman School of Music and the Department of Political Science, have posted messages on their school websites that they are not accepting applications for the fall. While not commenting on those specific programs, a UR spokesperson said via email: "Numerous factors including recent changes in the federal research funding landscape are affecting doctoral education nationwide. In response to these evolving conditions, and as part of the University of Rochester’s broader strategic planning efforts, university leaders have been carefully reviewing the structure, management, and funding of PhD education to ensure its long-term strength and sustainability.
"As part of this approach," the message continued, "the university is limiting admissions to some PhD doctoral programs for the Fall 2026 cycle. These steps have been taken to ensure that the institution’s resources align with current fiscal realities and put us in the best possible position to preserve the quality of training, research, and educational opportunities that are central to student success."
Elsewhere, UR's engineering, nursing, oral health and business programs saw modest to significant increases in international enrollment this year, records show. And during an internal webinar last month, UR’s Vice Provost for Enrollment Rob Alexander said applications are up, for both domestic and international students, notably from India, South Korea and Vietnam.
“China had been the source of the bulk of our international students ... but with that single source slowing very precipitously, we’re putting a lot of effort into diversification,” he said.
At RIT, India is the largest source of international students, but this year saw the largest enrollment decline, records show.
One other category of international students are recent graduates participating in Optional Practical Training, which allows them to stay in the county and work in their field for one year, or with a STEM degree, an additional two years. There were 1,196 UR participants a year ago, 1,100 now, records show. RIT, meanwhile, saw an increase from 823 to 997.
The program is seen as a pathway to an H1-B visa. But the White House is making it harder for employers to hire foreign workers, and is threatening to restrict or eliminate OPT. Among the critics is Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri who has called OPT “one of the most abused programs in the entire U.S. immigration system,” describing it as a “cheap-labor pipeline for big business — and a backdoor into the U.S. job market for foreign workers.”
But increasing restrictions on immigration is raising alarms beyond the halls of higher education.
“The Trump administration’s policies on illegal and legal immigration would reduce the projected number of workers in the United States by 6.8 million by 2028 and by 15.7 million by 2035 and lower the annual rate of economic growth by almost one-third, harming U.S. living standards,” according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan policy research group.
