international student

With the Taliban barring women from college in her native Afghanistan, Bahara Saghari set her sights on pursuing higher education in the United States.

Saghari, 21, practiced English up to eight hours per day for several years, eventually winning an offer to study business administration at a private liberal arts college in Illinois. She was hoping to arrive this fall, but her plans were derailed again, this time by President Trump’s travel ban.

“You think that finally you are going to your dream, and then something came up and like, everything’s just gone,” Saghari said.

Thousands of students are among the people affected by the Trump administration’s travel ban and restrictions on citizens from 19 countries, including many who now feel stranded after investing considerable time and money to come to the U.S.

Some would-be international students are not showing up on American campuses this fall despite offers of admission because of logjams with visa applications, which the Trump administration slowed this summer while it rolled out additional vetting. Others have had second thoughts because of the administration’s wider immigration crackdown and the abrupt termination of some students’ legal status.

But none face bigger obstacles than the students hit with travel bans. Last year, the State Department issued more than 5,700 F-1 and J-1 visas — which are used by foreign students and researchers — to people in the 19 ban-affected countries between May and September. Citizens of Iran and Myanmar were issued more than half of the approved visas.

U.S. still the first choice for many

Pouya Karami, a 17-year-old student from Shiraz, Iran, focused his college search entirely on the U.S. No other country offers the same research opportunities in science, he said. He was planning to study polymer chemistry this fall at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, but he had to shelve those plans because of the travel ban.

Karami deferred admission until next year and is holding out hope. He is still preparing for his embassy interview and reaching out to U.S. politicians to reconsider the travel ban’s restrictions on students.

“I’m doing everything I can about it,” he said.

The full travel ban affects citizens from 12 countries spanning Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean. It blocks most people from obtaining new visas, although some citizens from the banned countries are exempt, such as green card holders, dual citizens and some athletes. Seven other countries have tighter restrictions that also apply to student visas.

When Trump announced the travel ban in June, he cited high visa overstay rates and national security threats from unstable or adversarial foreign governments as reasons for putting countries on the list. He has called some of the countries’ screening processes “deficient” and said he plans to keep the ban in place until “identified inadequacies” are addressed.

‘This kind of breaks my heart’

In Myanmar, the family of one 18-year-old student made his education their top priority, saving paychecks for him to go abroad for college. They risked their stability so he could have the chance to live a better life, said the student, who asked to be identified by only his nickname, Gu Gu, because he is worried about being targeted by the Myanmar or U.S. government for expressing criticism.

When he shared a screenshot of his acceptance letter to the University of South Florida in a family group chat, it exploded with celebratory emojis, Gu Gu said. He had been waiting for visa appointments to be announced when, one night, his mother woke him to ask about news of a U.S. travel ban. In an instant, his plans to study at USF this fall were ruined.

Many students his age in Myanmar have been drafted into the military or joined resistance groups since the military ousted the elected civilian government in 2021. While a civil war rages, he had been looking forward to simple freedoms in the U.S. like walking to school by himself or playing sports again.

“I was all in for U.S., so this kind of breaks my heart,” said Gu Gu, who was unable to defer his acceptance.

Students forced to look elsewhere

Saghari, the Afghan student, postponed her July visa interview appointment in Pakistan to August after learning of the travel ban, but ultimately canceled it. Knox College denied her request to defer her admission.

She later applied to schools in Europe but encountered issues with the admissions process. A German university told Saghari she would need to take another English proficiency test because an earlier score had expired, but taking the test the first time was already a challenge in Afghanistan’s political climate.

She has been accepted to a Polish university on condition she pay her tuition up front. She said her application is under review as the school validates her high school degree.

Amir, a 28-year-old Iranian graduate who declined to provide his last name for fear of being targeted, wasn’t able to travel to the U.S. to take a position as a visiting scholar. Instead, he has continued to work as a researcher in Tehran, saying it was difficult to focus after missing out on a fully funded opportunity to conduct research at the University of Pennsylvania.

His professor at Penn postponed his research appointment until next year, but Amir said it feels like “a shot in the dark.”

He’s been looking at research opportunities in Europe, which would require more time spent on applications and potentially learning a new language. He still would prefer to be in U.S., he said, but he isn’t optimistic that the country’s foreign policy is going to change.

“You lose this idealistic view of the world. Like you think, if I work hard, if I’m talented, if I contribute, I have a place somewhere else, basically somewhere you want to be,” he said. “And then you learn that, no, maybe people don’t want you there. That’s kind of hard to deal with it.”

Seminera writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Todd Feathers contributed to this report.

One international student after another told the University of Central Missouri this summer that they couldn’t get a visa, and many struggled to even land an interview for one.

Even though demand was just as high as ever, half as many new international graduate students showed up for fall classes compared with last year.

The decline represents a hit to the bottom line for Central Missouri, a small public university that operates close to its margins with an endowment of only $65 million. International students typically account for nearly a quarter of its tuition revenue.

“We aren’t able to subsidize domestic students as much when we have fewer international students who are bringing revenue to us,” said Roger Best, the university’s president.

Signs of a decline in international students have unsettled colleges around the U.S. Colleges with large numbers of foreign students and small endowments have little financial cushion to protect them from steep losses in tuition money.

International students represent at least 20% of enrollment at more than 100 colleges with endowments of less than $250,000 per student, according to an Associated Press analysis. Many are small Christian colleges, but the group also includes large universities such as Northeastern and Carnegie Mellon.

The extent of the change in enrollment will not be clear until the fall. Some groups have forecast a decline of as much as 40%, with a huge impact on college budgets and the wider U.S. economy.

International students face new scrutiny on several fronts

As part of a broader effort to reshape higher education, President Trump has pressed colleges to limit their numbers of international students and heightened scrutiny of student visas. His administration has moved to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activism, and new student visa appointments were put on hold for weeks as it ramped up vetting of applicants’ social media.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said it will propose a rule that would put new limits on the time foreign students can stay in the U.S.

The policies have introduced severe financial instability for colleges, said Justin Gest, a professor at George Mason University who studies the politics of immigration.

Foreign students are not eligible for federal financial aid and often pay full price for tuition — double or even triple the in-state rate paid by domestic students at public universities.

“If an international student comes in and pays $80,000 a year in tuition, that gives universities the flexibility to offer lower fees and more scholarship money to American students,” Gest said.

A Sudanese student barely made it to the U.S. for the start of classes

Ahmed Ahmed, a Sudanese student, nearly didn’t make it to the U.S. for his freshman year at the University of Rochester.

The Trump administration in June announced a travel ban on 12 countries, including Sudan. Diplomatic officials assured Ahmed he could still enter the U.S. because his visa was issued before the ban. But when he tried to board a flight to leave for the United States from Uganda, where he stayed with family during the summer, he was turned away and advised to contact an embassy about his visa.

With the help of the University of Rochester’s international office, Ahmed was able to book another flight.

At Rochester, where he received a scholarship to study electrical engineering, Ahmed, 19, said he feels supported by the staff. But he also finds himself on edge and understands why other students might not want to subject themselves to the scrutiny in the U.S., particularly those who are entirely paying their own way.

“I feel like I made it through, but I’m one of the last people to make it through,” he said.

Colleges are taking steps to blunt the impact

In recent years, international students have made up about 30% of enrollment at Central Missouri, which has a total of around 12,800 students. In anticipation of the hit to international enrollment, Central Missouri cut a cost-of-living raise for employees. It has pushed off infrastructure improvements planned for its campus and has been looking for other ways to cut costs.

Small schools — typically classified as those with no more than 5,000 students — tend to have less financial flexibility and will be especially vulnerable, said Dick Startz, an economics professor at UC Santa Barbara.

Lee University, a Christian institution with 3,500 students in Tennessee, is expecting 50 to 60 international students enrolled this fall, down from 82 the previous school year, representing a significant drop in revenue for the school, said Roy Y. Chan, the university’s director of graduate studies.

The school already has increased tuition by 20% over the last five years to account for a decrease in overall enrollment, he said.

“Since we’re a smaller liberal arts campus, tuition cost is our main, primary revenue,” Chan said, as opposed to government funding or donations.

The strains on international enrollment only add to distress for schools already on the financial brink.

Colleges around the country have been closing as they cope with declines in domestic enrollment, a consequence of changing demographics and the effects of the pandemic. Nationwide, private colleges have been closing at a rate of about two per month, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Assn.

The number of high school graduates in the U.S. is expected to decline through 2041, when there will be 13% fewer compared with 2024, according to projections from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

“That means that if you lost participation from international students, it’s even worse,” Startz said.

Vileira, Seminera and Binkley write for the Associated Press.