New international student enrollment in the United States fell 17% in fall 2025 from the previous year, according to a Fall 2025 Snapshot from the U.S. Department of State and the Institute of International Education. The IIE's Spring 2026 Snapshot projected another decline in overall international enrollment, while Common App reported that international applications for fall 2026, or the 2026-27 academic year, fell approximately 10% from the prior year, the largest annual decline in its digital records since 2013. Roughly 16,000 foreign students abandoned applications compared with 2025, with applications from Asia and Africa falling by double digits and European applications declining 4%. The decline was about 1% at colleges with acceptance rates below 25%, compared with approximately 20% at schools accepting more than 50% of applicants. Domestic U.S. applications rose 4%, led by a 9% increase in the Southwest. New rules ending traditional duration-of-status policies and limiting F-1 academic-student and J-1 exchange-visitor stays to four years, along with delayed visa appointments and country-specific restrictions, could further weaken the pipeline. Fitch Ratings warned that institutions dependent on full-paying international students, especially those with large graduate and STEM programs, face financial pressure, while NAFSA estimated that the enrollment decline could cost local economies $3.4 billion and put up to 40,000 U.S. jobs at risk. The Common App report also found that SAT or ACT submissions rose 11%, while applicants submitting neither score fell 5%; only 5% of colleges require scores, up from 4% last year but below 55% in 2019.