More international students turning to Asian universities as a refuge

For Jess Concepcion, a microbiology student from the Philippines, obtaining a doctorate from a university in the United States had been a dream. It was where most of his academic mentors had studied and done research, and he wanted to follow in their footsteps.

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But when the United States, under President Donald J. Trump, started pausing visa interviews during peak season this spring, threatening to deport international students for political speech and slashing funding for academic research, he quickly changed plans. Applications for doctoral programs take years and have to be tailored to specific schools, so he is aiming for programs in Switzerland and Singapore instead.

“That uncertainty made me stop in my tracks and choose another country,” Mr. Concepcion, 24, said. “Immigration policy is quite restrictive, and I’m on a different side of the world. So living in that kind of instability that far away isn’t healthy for me.”

It’s a quandary facing many young people around the world. According to the United Nations, 6.9 million people studied outside their home country in 2022. The United States has long attracted the most foreign students, 1.1 million in the 2023-2024 academic year.

It’s too soon to know whether more foreign students will choose not to attend US schools. But warning signs abound.

Major international education search platforms, including IDP and Keystone Education Group, have detected a marked decline in student interest in American programs. Among academic administrators polled by the Institute of International Education this spring, more than usual reported drops in international applications for the coming year.

These are not the first signs that American higher education is losing its dominant position. For years, countries in Asia have been strengthening their universities and marketing them to students around the world. With more appealing alternatives, the Trump administration’s hostile stance may hasten the decline in US higher education preeminence.