Chinese student numbers in US continue to fall as gap with Indian scholars widens

Chinese student numbers in the United States have continued to decline over the past year, but they remain the second-largest student group after Indians and the biggest contributors to the US economy, according to new data released on Monday.\nA total of 265,919 Chinese studied in the US in the 2024-25 academic year, marking a four per cent decrease from the previous academic year, according to the latest annual survey of higher education institutions by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a report sponsored by the US State Department.\nMeanwhile, the number of Indian students, which last year surpassed that of Chinese students for the first time in about 15 years, rose by nine per cent to 363,019 in the 2024-25 academic year.\nStill, Chinese students contributed about US$14.6 billion to the US economy in 2024, while Indian students brought in US$14.0 billion. China also remains the largest source of undergraduate and non-degree students, though enrolments for undergraduate, graduate, and non-degree students have decreased by between two and 10 per cent compared to the previous academic year.\n\n\nThe widening gap between Indians and Chinese came amid heightened anxiety from Chinese nationals after Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency last year. Trump’s first term saw numerous restrictions on travel and immigration, including a presidential proclamation to limit the entry of graduate students and researchers from China.\nIt also came as American government officials signalled a preference for Indians over Chinese in certain fields because of national security concerns. Last year, then-US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said he would like to see more Chinese students coming “to study the humanities and social sciences, not particle physics”.\nAs with the previous academic year, the new IIE data shows that about half (51.9 per cent) of the Chinese students in the US are studying science, technology, engineering, maths, and other “STEM” subjects. In comparison, STEM students make up nearly three-quarters (71.7 per cent) of Indians studying in the US, also similar to the previous year.\nThe second Trump administration has taken numerous steps to restrict international students, including delays in visa processing, travel bans, threats to deport foreigners for expressing certain speech, and proposals to change the H-1B programme – a key work visa often used by international graduates.\n\n\nChinese students have also been specifically targeted. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that his department would “aggressively” revoke visas of Chinese students with ties to the Communist Party or in critical fields, as well as tighten vetting for new mainland Chinese and Hong Kong visa applicants.\nBut those measures were imposed after the start of the 2024-2025 academic year, when IIE collected the data.\nFull enrolment data for the 2025–26 academic year is not yet available, but partial figures from IIE indicate that new student enrolments have fallen by 17 per cent from the previous academic year.\nAmong US institutions reporting declines in new enrolments, 96 per cent cited visa application concerns and 68 per cent cited travel restrictions.\nBut IIE also noted that 84 per cent of colleges and universities still consider international student recruitment a priority, with 28 per cent of them targeting China as a graduate recruitment market.\nDuring the 2024-25 academic year, the US was the largest destination for international students, hosting about 1.18 million students – a five per cent increase from the previous academic year.\nEducation advocates have warned that steep declines in foreign student numbers could hurt the US economy and undermine its competitiveness in STEM fields.\nTrump, for his part, has recently defended international students. Speaking on Fox News last Monday, the US president said he viewed the matter “as a business”. “The students pay more than double when they come in from most foreign countries. I want to see our school system thrive,” he said.\nEarlier this year, Trump said he would allow 600,000 Chinese to study in the US.\nChinese students had been the largest foreign group since the 2009-10 school year, but their numbers have steadily declined since 2019-20. That academic year, over 372,000 Chinese students were in the US, accounting for some 35 per cent of the international student population.\nYingyi Ma, a sociology professor at Syracuse University, said several factors beyond anxiety over US policy could be driving the trend. These include the rise of “intra-Asia migration”, with more Chinese students opting for universities in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.\nIn addition, “the return on investment is certainly going down”, she said. “Overseas credentials – including American credentials – are getting more and more devalued.”\nMeanwhile, the number of Americans studying in China has seen a slight rebound from pandemic-era lows, according to data from the 2023-2024 school year. There were 1,749 American students in China during that period, compared to 469 from the previous academic year.\nNumbers peaked in the 2018-19 academic year, when over 11,600 Americans studied in China.\n