International students are returning to U.S. and Pennsylvania colleges in stronger numbers this year, but the rebound has yet to make up for last year’s historic declines as COVID-19 continues to disrupt academic exchange, according to a new survey.
Nationwide, American colleges and universities saw a 4% annual increase in international students this fall, according to survey results released Monday by the Institute of International Education. But that follows a decrease of 15% last year — the steepest decline since the institute began publishing data in 1948.
The upturn is better than many colleges were forecasting over the summer as the delta variant surged. But it also reflects continued obstacles as visa backlogs persist and as some students show reluctance to study abroad during the pandemic.
Universities and U.S. officials hope this year’s uptick is the start of a long-term rebound. As international travel ramps up, there’s optimism that colleges will see growth past their pre-pandemic levels.
“We expect a surge following the pandemic,” Matthew Lussenhop, an acting U.S. assistant secretary of state, told reporters. This year’s increase indicates that international students “continue to value a U.S. education and remain committed to pursuing studies in the United States,” he added.
Overall, 70% of U.S. colleges reported an uptick in international students this fall, while 20% saw decreases and 10% remained level, according to the institute. That’s based on a preliminary survey of more than 800 U.S. schools. The nonprofit plans to issue full nationwide data next year.
One of the largest rebounds in Pennsylvania came at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie-Mellon University, where international enrollments jumped 19.8 percent this year from Fall 2021, fueled by major increases in the numbers of foreign graduate students. With an international student count of 6,752, CMU ranks second only to Penn State in international students here.
Two national liberal arts colleges in South Central Pennsylvania region said they are also seeing the beginnings of a bounce back.
Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster saw international enrollments push to 398 from 378 in 2020, though Vice President for Enrollment Management Jimmie Foster Jr. noted that is still off from the college’s all-time high of 434 international enrollees in 2019-20. At Dickinson College in Carlisle, meanwhile, Vice President for Enrollment Catherine Davenport said international students counts ramped up from 225 in fall 2020 to 244 this year. Dickinson had 280 foreign students in the fall of 2019.
Both Foster and Davenport said they are optimistic at getting back to their pre-pandemic student counts soon, noting that international applications for the class entering in fall 2022 are running well ahead of numbers from both of the last two years.
At least some of the increase this fall is due to new students who hoped to come to the U.S. last year but delayed their plans because of the pandemic. All told, there was a 68% increase in newly enrolled international students this year, a dramatic increase compared with last year’s decrease of 46%.
For many schools, even a modest upturn is a relief. Over the summer, officials at U.S. universities worried that the delta variant would dash any hopes of a rebound. But for many, that did not come to pass.
In August, U.S. embassies and consulates in India reported that they had recently issued visas to a record 55,000 students even after starting the process two months late because of COVID-19. Embassies in China reported that they had issued 85,000 student visas.
At Penn State, officials said international enrollment stabilized this year with a small, 0.8 percent increase this fall after an 11.4 percent decrease from 2019 to 2020. But the fall 2021 count of 9,304 is still down 10 percent from the pre-pandemic level of 10,351.
Enrollment of new international undergraduates continues to drop, Vice Provost for Global Programs Roger Brindley told PennLive, but that was offset this year by a 64.3 percent increase in new international graduate student enrollment and a near tripling of international enrollments undergraduate instruction through World Campus.
Brindley said he believes that change in the student make-up may be a sign that the pandemic is still having impacts.
“As we still remain in a pandemic - and most countries in the world do not have our vaccination supply that we have in the United States - I might be inclined to let my 24-year-old go or my 25-year-old go (study abroad), but wold i let my 17, 18-year-old daughter or son go?” Brindley asked.
U.S. colleges and universities absorbed steep drops in international students enrollments in 2020, though a rebound has begun this fall.Open Doors report on International Exchange
At some schools with big brands overseas, enrollments have already rebounded past their 2019 figures. More than 17,000 international students enrolled at New York University this fall, up 14% over 2019, according to school data.
At the University of Rochester, another top destination for international students in New York, enrollments from abroad surged 70% over 2019 levels, driven by a boom in graduate students, according to school data.
Most students were able to arrive on campus within the first weeks of the semester, but many dealt with visa backlogs at U.S. embassies and consulates, not to mention costly flights and cancellations, said Jennifer Blask, the university’s head of international admissions.
The vast majority of U.S. colleges returned to in-person learning by this fall, but not all international students are physically on campus.
Harrisburg University offers a good case in point.
Most of its roughly 5,000 international students are already in the United States on F1 visas, pursuing additional graduate studies. These programs are typically delivered in “executive format,” meaning students take weekly classes online and come to campus so many weekends a semester.
But federal pandemic guidelines are giving schools and students greater flexibility in how programs are delivered and managed. Under the continuing but temporary federal guidelines, these classes are permitted to be offered completely on-line with no impact on students’ visa status.
This has allowed us to keep our enrollment numbers steady,” HU spokesman Steve Infanti said. “We will remain online for the Spring semester, unless federal guidelines for F1 students change and require a return to face-to-face instruction.”
Out of all international students enrolled at U.S. colleges this year, the IIE survey found that about 65% were taking classes on campus.
International students are seen as important contributors to U.S. campuses for a variety of reasons. Colleges say they help provide a diverse mix of cultures and views on campus. Many end up working in high-demand fields after graduating. And some colleges rely on the financial benefits of international students, who are typically charged higher tuition rates.
“It’s the greatest form of diplomacy we have,” Penn State’s Brindley said.
“Our students benefit from having a highly diverse, global set of classmates. International students benefit from the fact that higher education in the United States is the best in the world... And we get to benefit as a society from having them as a part of our community, and that’s what we’re going for.
“At the end of the day, our U.S. students when they graduate will have to understand their world. They’ll have to be aware, and they’ll have to exhibit some competencies about their world. We put it into our curriculum, and we put it into our co-curricular campus life.”
Although many colleges have avoided a second year of declines, there’s still concern that the upturn may be isolated to certain types of colleges. The IIE survey found that, last year, community colleges suffered much steeper declines than four-year universities, with a 24% backslide nationwide.
Researchers are still analyzing this year’s data, but some worry that community colleges may continue to lag behind.
There are also questions about whether the rebound will continue past this year. New vaccine requirements for foreign travelers could make it harder for some students to get here, and colleges are expecting continued competition from colleges in Australia, Canada and other nations looking to boost their international populations.
Still, officials at many colleges are optimistic. More vaccines are being sent overseas, and newly lifted travel bans promise to reduce barriers to travel. Some also credit President Joe Biden for sending a message that America wants students from abroad.
In July, the administration issued a statement promising a “renewed” commitment to international education, saying it would work to make overseas students feel welcome.
Rachel Banks, senior director of public policy and legislative strategy for NAFSA, an international education association, said that’s a shift from the Trump administration.
“In the last administration, there was a lot of negativity and negative rhetoric around international students,” Banks said. “Biden is now trying to telegraph to the world that there’s interest in having international students coming here.”