The Shifting Landscape of International Student Enrollment
On February 21st, the Campaign for College Opportunity released a report titled “Illuminating Innovations: Advancing Enrollment at California State University,” investigating the enrollment declines among the undergraduate student body at the California State University system throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. One key student group identified in the report that accounted for over one-fifth (21%) of the system’s enrollment decline between Fall 2019 and Fall 2023 was international students. Unsurprisingly, international student enrollment was heavily impacted by the multi-year-long pandemic. Strict travel restrictions and international student visa backlogs led many students either to postpone or entirely forego their plans to study at United States colleges and universities, with international enrollment dropping by 20%– and accounting for nearly $10 billion in lost revenue- from pre-pandemic levels by 2021 across the country.
In recent years, as the pandemic receded and travel restrictions began to ease, the U.S. saw a remarkable increase in international enrollment, rising 12%- the highest year-over-year increase in 40 years- and by Fall 2023 actually exceeded the pre-pandemic total. Digging into the data on the state level, however, reveals a picture distinct from the straightforward decline and rebound narrative that played out through the rest of the country. International enrollment at both the University of California (UC) and CSU systems continued to decline into 2023. The UC system enrolled roughly 8,000 fewer international students in Fall 2023 than 2019, with over a third of that decrease occurring between the 2022 and 2023 school years. Things weren’t much different at the CSU, which saw international enrollment decrease by an additional 1,000 students between 2022-2023, and by over 5,800 students since 2019. The systems were also on different trajectories prior to 2019, with the UC more than doubling their international enrollment between 2013 and 2019, while the CSU had suffered modest declines even in the years leading up to the pandemic. As a result, by the onset of the pandemic international students accounted for 13% of undergraduate enrollment at the UC compared to just 3.3% of the student body at the CSU.
A Tale of Two Countries
While the outcomes strongly resemble each other, there are some key differences in how each system got to where they are. Perhaps the most significant difference is the degree to which the overall decline was driven by students of Chinese origin. In 2019, Chinese students were by far the largest single source of international enrollment for both systems, but there were substantial differences in degree as Chinese students accounted for 70% of international students at the UC but just 22% at the CSU. Across both systems, enrollment of students of Chinese origin dropped dramatically between 2019 and 2023, declining by 35% at the UC and a whopping 76% at the CSU.
Despite the rate of decline being far larger at the CSU, it was the UC for which the overall decline in international enrollment could be traced directly to changes in Chinese student enrollment. While the UC enrolled over 6,700 fewer students of Chinese origin in Fall 2023 than it did in 2019, they saw a small increase (464 students) of non-Chinese international enrollment over the same period. The CSU meanwhile, reported a 23% decline in international student enrollment of non-Chinese origin between 2019 and 2023, accounting for over 1,500 students.
In both cases, a sharp increase in enrollment of students from India helped mitigate what could have been even larger declines. At the UC, the number Indian students rose by over 400 students, accounting for nearly 90% of the gains incurred among international students from countries other than China. At the CSU, enrollment of Indian students rose from just 787 in 2019 to 1,492 in 2023- nearly doubling over the five-year period and surpassing China as home to the most CSU international students.
While at both the CSU and UC a sharp decline in enrollment of Chinese students was partially offset by a spike in enrollment of Indian students, we do see key differences among international students from the rest of the world. International enrollment from countries other than China and India at the UC declined by roughly 650 students during the pandemic’s early stages but rebounded completely as soon as Fall 2021. The CSU proved less resilient in this regard, as steady year-over-year decreases have left 2023’s enrollment numbers more than 2,700 students (-34%) short of their 2019 total.
Note: Above totals may not add up to the overall changes in international enrollment as data is suppressed for countries of origin with less than 10 international students in a given year, and some international students previously attended a U.S. institution before the UC/CSU and are not reflected in the country-of-origin data.
While those 2,720 students reflected enrollment declines from all over the globe, nearly half of those students were from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In 2019, the two Gulf nations accounted for CSU’s 2nd and 4th largest sources of international students, with over 1,600 students between them, but as of Fall 2023 neither are even among the top 10 with just 252 students combined currently enrolled.
As pandemic restrictions on travel and visa acquisitions fade into the rear-view mirror, it will continue to be crucial to monitor how international enrollment numbers respond. If campuses are unable to attract international students at pre-pandemic rates, the potential downstream effects are potentially severe. As limited capacity across the UC and CSU systems remains a perpetual hot-button issue, the potential availability of thousands of spots at highly sought after campuses that had previously been allocated to international students will come under increased scrutiny. Increasing enrollment from local high schools and continuing to improve transfer pathways with community colleges to provide access for more Californians is always a good strategy for enrollment albeit not one without tradeoffs. Due to the inability of international students to access state residency tuition breaks, international students are far more likely to pay full tuition than residents, meaning that any marked shift in enrollment from international to domestic students would likely lead to declining tuition revenue although the difference could be made up by increases in state funding. Doing so would allow the state to grant a golden opportunity to pursue higher education to thousands of Californians that had previously been shut out.