Shailaja Neelakantan, Education Dive
Dozens of institutions have urged the government to expedite the approval process in order to stem the loss of foreign students. Enrollment of new international students in U.S. colleges is already trending downward. For undergraduates, new enrollments fell 2.9% from their peak in 2015-16 to 2016-17 and again by 6.3% the year after that. Graduate new enrollments are following a similar trend, down 6.8% from their high point in 2015-16 to 2017-18, according to data from the Institute of International Education. Falling enrollments hit colleges’ bottom lines and also affect their local communities. The more than 1 million international students currently in the U.S. pitch in $39 billion to the economy and support as many as 455,000 U.S. jobs despite accounting for just 5.5% of higher ed enrollment in the country, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
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