The University of Maryland’s international student enrollment fell by almost 7 percent from fall 2024 to fall 2025 as students around the world are feeling the effects of the U.S. government’s immigration crackdown.
Nearly 5,000 international students were enrolled at the university in fall 2024, International Student Services data show. This fall, international enrollment decreased by about 400 students.
The university’s international graduate student population accounted for the decline. It decreased nearly 10 percent from fall 2024 to fall 2025, marking the largest drop in this category within the past five years. International undergraduate student enrollment at the university slightly increased between this year and the last.
But the graduate student numbers ultimately cancelled out any growth. Graduate students make up 73 percent of this university’s fall 2025 international student population, according to the data.
University president Darryll Pines told The Diamondback the decline in international students is a detriment to the school’s community.
“It’s important that our fellow graduate students and undergrad students have these colleagues who come from around the world, so that it will expose them to different ways of thinking and also allow them to create relationships that might be lifelong,” Pines said.
Experts said fewer international students have been enrolling at colleges in the U.S. due to visa obstacles, uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s targeting of immigrants and reduced funding for universities and international academic programs.
Since Trump took office in January, international students encountered additional challenges when applying for visas because the State Department intensified its review process.
The department temporarily stopped interviewing applicants in May so it could conduct a closer examination of their social media profiles. It has since issued instructions for all student and exchange visa candidates to automatically switch their profiles to “public.”
Although this pause only lasted a few weeks, it was long enough to create a backlog, according to Melissa Buys, an international student from South Africa and a member of the Graduate Student Government’s international student affairs committee.
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As a result, some students could not get their visas in time for the 2025 academic year despite resumed activity, Buys said. She came to the university five years ago through the Fulbright Program.
Once the State Department resumed interviews, it became especially difficult for applicants in India to schedule visa appointments, said Clay Harmon, the executive director of AIRC: The Association of International Enrollment Management.
“What we heard from our members on the ground in India as well as our institutional members in our quicktrack survey, is that the visa interview capacity never really rebounded in India this summer,” he said.
But the situation could help explain the 7 percent decrease in this university’s international student enrollment because so many international students travel to the U.S. from India, he added.
According to the university’s data, most of its international students come from India. More than 200 fewer students from India enrolled at the university this fall compared to last year.
Trump mainly targeted countries in the Middle East and Africa in his travel restrictions placed on 19 countries in June. These restrictions also hampered international student enrollment, according to data released in November by the Institute of International Education.
Fewer students from countries under the travel ban came to the U.S. in October 2025 compared to October 2024, the findings showed.
Buys said many international students could hesitate to travel to the U.S. for fear of their visas being taken away.
In spring, the Trump administration revoked and then later restored the visa statuses of more than 1,200 international students, including seven people at this university, The Diamondback reported.
“When all of that was happening earlier this year, I was legitimately scared to leave my house,” Buys said. “I was like, I don’t want to go outside and accidentally get a traffic violation or something and have my visa status revoked.”
This university is unable to comment on visa matters due to FERPA regulations, but the international student and scholars office is offering individualized support to those who need it.
Ernesto Calvo, the government and politics department’s graduate studies co-director, agreed that uncertainty about Trump’s policies could lead to a further decrease in international enrollment at colleges such as this university.
“Seven percent seems rather modest compared to the number of issues that we’re seeing,” Calvo, who also works in graduate student admissions, said. “The legal environment is changing, so it’s difficult to tell them, international students, that the rules of the game will not change.”
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He said state budget cuts and federally-funded research grant cancellations also had a negative effect on international student enrollment, particularly for potential graduate students because some departments had to limit the number of students they accepted this year.
The graduate school lost some of the funding it had previously used to entice international students to come to the university, Calvo added.
Graduate school and office of undergraduate admissions are continuing efforts to recruit, enroll and support international students.
Pines said the university has been working with Maryland’s congressional delegation to explain the value of different visas and how foreign students contribute to research.
The university has also been keeping its students involved with the international students and scholars program informed about new visa rules and regulations.
“We’re very open to the best talent coming from every corner of the Earth to College Park,” Pines said. “They bring unique and different perspectives that we value.”
