For college senior Mianfeng Lu, Kansas City is a welcome change of pace from his bustling native Beijing.
“Here, everyone's chill, like slowly, and everyone is nice to each other,” he said. “Many cities also good, but I really love Kansas City.”
But Lu, who’s getting a film degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, worries he — and other international students — will be forced to leave.
“We're really scared. We believe they don't like us, they want to kick us out,” he said.
American schools have come to depend on more than a million international students to help keep the lights on. But the Trump Administration views some of those students as possible terrorists. It calls them a drain on resources, and argues that they take opportunities away from American students.
President Donald Trump’s State Department has made international student visas much harder to get and easier to take away. The administration has slapped travel bans on 19 countries.
It’s a concern for the schools that enroll those students, too. Big, prestigious institutions like Harvard and Columbia attract lots of international students, but small private schools like Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri, probably need them more. And this fall Avila is seeing a big drop in new students from abroad.
“Students just are not receiving visas right now, which is usually perfunctory, students would just get them immediately,” said Andrew Vogel, Vice President of Global Strategy at Avila. “But now, even students with excellent GPAs are not being allowed into the United States, which is not good for any of us.”
Vogel said Avila welcomed about half as many new international students as it was expecting this year.
Lu, the UMKC senior, said that the State Department revoked student visas held by fellow Chinese friends of his because they had committed minor traffic infractions. The government revoked more than 6,000 student visas for violations ranging from assault to seatbelt infractions.
Zuzana Wootson, with the advocacy group Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, expects Trump’s clampdown on international students to trigger major changes across the country.
“When combined with the fact that now we have this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty for international students, and we're expecting this big drop,” said Wootson.
The size of that enrollment drop has yet to be tallied. The State Department tracks international students closely and should release data on how many are attending U.S. schools this semester by the end of September.
But, looking at early indicators like visa applications last summer, Wootson believes schools are facing a 30%-40% plunge in new foreign students, and about a 15% drop in the total international student population.
That would be a loss of nearly 180,000 students — and all the money they would otherwise bring in from abroad.
“This means a severe consequence for our economy,” said Wootson. “We are looking at seven billion, with a ‘B,’ in lost revenue, and more than 60,000 fewer jobs across the country.”
The "enrollment cliff"
Wootson says the loss could easily force some smaller schools to close.
They were already struggling. Domestic enrollment has been plunging, thanks to declining US birth rates since the Great Recession.
Schools have been dreading this for years. They call it the enrollment cliff.
And Economist Madeline Zavodny at the University of North Florida said many were banking on foreign students to keep from going over the edge.
“U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly turned to international students to fill seats, and in particular, fill coffers,” said Zavodny. “This is true at large public universities, at small, private ones, and at everything in between.”
Avila University is one example.
Vogel said that after the pandemic, Avila transformed itself and went all in on international students, and it worked.
The school went from attracting only about 20 foreign students to more than 1,560 — about half the student body — because it made connections and overhauled its curriculum.
“We created programs that international students needed, that the U.S. economy needed. So, you know, cybersecurity management, healthcare management, AI management,” said Vogel.
This makes Avila stronger scholastically, especially in science, technology, engineering and math fields; and financially, since many foreign students pay full tuition and live on campus.
Vogel says international students volunteer at Harvesters food pantry and teach coding camps for disadvantaged local kids.
At some schools, international students fill many of the teaching assistant and tutoring jobs.
Meanwhile, Avila churns out professionals that Vogel said Kansas City-area tech companies are clamoring to hire.
“International students are here to make America great. That's what they're here for. They want to make it better,” said Vogel. ”Denying students education is only bad for us. It’s bad for everybody.” It’s bad for higher education across the region.
Park University, UMKC, Rockhurst University and others are also making a concerted push to attract international students. Avila’s just the only school that agreed to discuss it for this story.
And, of course, shutting students out of U.S. schools also hurts the students.
“It was, honestly, devastating for me,” said Donya Movahedi.
Movahedi was accepted to Purdue University’s civil engineering doctoral program.
She was going to start this fall, helping Indiana design solar farms on wasted space around highways.
But she’s from Iran, and so blocked by Trump’s travel ban.
“I had invested my whole life into this dream. It was a huge shock for me, actually,” Movahedi said.
Things may turn around for Movahedi. She says she’s been accepted to grad school tuition-free at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.
That’s the way it goes. Zuzana Wootson says smart, motivated, often wealthy international students have options.
“We are really attracting the best and brightest around the world, and with these actions, we are pushing them away,” Wootson said. “And other countries, as we speak, are investing into welcoming this international talent.”
KCUR is licensed to the University of Missouri Board of Curators and is an editorially independent community service of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
