Number One – But for How Long? US International Education in the Second Year of Trump

Search and survey data helps illuminate how prospective international students regard study in the U.S. after a year of turbulent statements and policy activity: with indications that the underlying perception and reputation of U.S. education may be impacted.

Whether we talk about international education in terms of a Big 4, a Big 14 or – perhaps eventually – a Big 40, we can safely assume that one destination always makes the cut. According to UNESCO data, The United States of America enrolled more than 950,000 international students in 2023 – more than Canada (390,000) and Australia (460,000) combined and over 25% more than the UK (740,000).

The U.S. is, effectively, a ‘Big 1’.

We see this in data for prospective students too. The U.S. is still the most popular destination in Keystone’s Share of Search data for 2026: accounting for 18% of all searches (the UK is in second-place at 10%)

And yet, search interest in the U.S. at the start of 2026 is down more than 50% compared to the start of 2025.

Its lead is under threat and our combination of data on student interest and student voice can help explain why. First, it’s useful to recap how we got here.

U.S. international education policy – a year in review

Chances are any blog you read (or any LLM summary you request) will give a different selection of the main US policy issues affecting international students in 2025 and 2026 – partly because there have been so many and partly because the impact isn’t always simple.

Cuts to federal funding, for example, don’t immediately affect international education, but they can appear very meaningful to prospective research students looking at expensive-to-run graduate programs. Similarly, the changes to the H1-B visa last year don’t apply directly to international students (H1-B isn’t a post-study work visa and transitions from the F1 student visa aren’t affected) but they did impact how prospective students felt about studying in the U.S.

The wider issue in both of these (and other) cases is the structural impact on the perception of the U.S. as an attractive and high-quality international study destination – something I’ll come back to with our survey data below.

What changes has the US made to international education policy?

Here are some of the key points on the timeline to now:

• January 2025 – pledges to deport international student protestors: an executive order targets international students who participate in pro-Palestinian protest and rally activities on campus
• February 2025 – ECA funding freeze: the State Department pauses funding for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (which covers Fulbright and other international exchange programs)
• March 2025 – attempted DoE closure: an executive order attempts to close the Department of Education and disperse its functions; the motion is blocked by Congress but leads to significant staff cuts
• March 2025 – review of federal funding for universities: various investigations threaten to cut financial aid for institutions allowing alleged “antisemitic harassment” or awarding “race-based scholarships” for graduate programs
• April 2025 – SEVIS terminations: reports indicated that large numbers of international students had had their (SEVIS) Student and Exchange Visitor Information System records terminated
• May 2025 – attempted revocation of SEVP at Harvard: the Department of Homeland Security sought to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students by removing its Student and Exchange Visitor Program status; the motion is subject to ongoing challenge
• May 2025 – student visa interviews suspended: new visa interviews were halted until late June, disrupting the peak period for international student applications
• June 2025 – first travel ban: nationals of 19 countries were subject to full or partial restrictions on travel to the U.S., including those holding F1 (student) visas
• September 2025 – H1B fee increase: the cost of applying to the H1-B work visa (a sponsored route for specialist graduate occupations) was increased to $100,000; although transitions from F1 (student) visas are exempt, the change would affect international graduates applying for H1-B after an interval
• December 2025 – second travel ban: the ban on travel to the U.S. was extended to 39 countries in total, including Nigeria (a major source of international students)
• March 2026 – re-evaluation of OPT: a letter indicates the administration’s intent to review Optional Practical Training (OPT) the main post-study work visa route for international graduates in the U.S. 

The list is extensive, even when selective. It’s a lot to try and summarise (play the world’s smallest violin for your humble author). It’s a lot for those working in international education to understand, keep track of and explain to students. And it is, of course, a lot for students themselves to comprehend.

But, broadly, we can group its contents into four themes:

• Access – can students come to study in the U.S. in the first place? Travel bans most directly impact this, but so do actions on visa applications and SEVIS
• Outcomes – what can students do with a U.S. degree? Changes to post-study or graduate work schemes like OPT and H1-B have the most impact here
• Trust – do students have confidence that their offer of education in the U.S. will be upheld? Revocation of SEVIS and pausing of visa interviews all impact the ‘rules and expectations’ around international study, as do travel bans
• Quality – is the U.S. education offer as attractive? This comes into question with cuts to university funding and scrutiny of institutional freedom

The last two might be less obvious, but our data leads me to suspect they could be significant.

The immediate impact: is studying abroad in the U.S. becoming less popular?

We’ve seen the impact of these policies play out in enrolment figures, with a 36% drop in F1 visa issuance in summer 2025, followed by a 17% fall in international student commencements in the IIE Fall 2025 snapshot.

And we can see it in Keystone’s Share of Search Data too:

The chart above shows search relative interest in U.S. study amongst prospective international student audiences at Masters level. It’s indexed to Q4 2023 as a baseline, to show us the ‘directional’ change in U.S. interest: has it gone up or down since that starting point.

And the time series tallies with the timeline:

• We see a dip following the election with search interest down 28 percentage points in Q4 2024 compared to Q3
• We then see a recovery in Q1 2025 (when much of the impact on international students was indirect – focussing on underlying funding for programs or activities by existing students rather than prospective students)
• Before the significant and sustained fall from Q2 2025, at which point search interest in the U.S. is consistently down around 50 percentage points compared to 2023 and 2024: this is the impact of the multiple actions on international student applications, status and travel

The ‘good news’ for the U.S. international education sector is that the trend has stabilised – the travel ban and the scrutiny of OPT have yet to repeat the effect we saw last spring. But we aren’t seeing any sustained recovery either.

Turning to our survey data can help explain why.

The wider impact: is the reputation of U.S. international education at risk?

It makes sense to see enrolments and search interest declining in response to the policy actions summarised above. And we would – hopefully – see both recover if those policy actions subside or reverse.

But look at what’s happening to the wider perception of the U.S. as a study destination:

The chart above is based on Keystone’s Pulse ongoing Pulse survey. This asks respondents to rate their chosen study destination on a number of factors. The question is a 5-point scale, but I’ve presented the data as a weighted average of those scores (higher is better). I’ve then compared two measurements of that score: one from June-August and another from October-February.

It’s lower in every single case. That’s surprising, but it also makes sense.

I’d expect the scores to have dropped from Visa Access and Safety as the prospective students taking this survey react to stories of threatened deportation, SEVIS revocation, travel bans and similar.

But we also see drops for the academic Reputation of U.S. education and the breadth and quality of its Subject Offer. And these gaps are bigger (dropping by 4 and 3 points, compared to 2).

There have been policies (for example, scrutiny of federal funding for universities) that could impact these more academic factors, but it could also be the case that we’re seeing a wider ‘structural’ impact on the perception of the U.S. as a study destination. And that’s a broader concern for universities and, perhaps, for policy-makers.

The real story in the second year of this Trump administration could be that changes to the U.S. international education offer aren’t simply making it harder to access: they could eventually lead less people to seek that access.

Dr. Mark Bennett

Dr. Mark Bennett is the VP of Research and Insights at Keystone Education Group. Leveraging Keystone's unique data and insights, Mark regularly presents on global higher education trends, recruitment, and policy topics, having previously spoken at events organized by NAFSA, CASE Universities Marketing Forum (UMF), HELOA, NAGAP, ContentEd, the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE), Westminster Forum and others. Mark taught at multiple UK universities prior to joining Keystone and holds a PhD in gothic literature from the University of Sheffield.