In the 2020-21 academic year, international student enrollment at U.S. colleges fell by -15%. In 2021-22, this figure began to climb once more, but by just +3.8% YoY. The most recent estimate for international students is around 948K, compared to nearly 1.1M before the pandemic. 

China and India are the two largest sources of international students in the United States. They accounted for 34.6% and 18.0% of students, respectively, in 2019. No other country comes close: South Korea, the third-largest source, accounts for 3.0%.

The 2021-22 enrollment figures show that this balance is changing. Chinese enrollment fell for the second year in a row and remains down -22.1% from 2019. Indian enrollment, on the other hand, rose and has climbed past pre-pandemic levels. Overall, since 2019, the share of Chinese students has fallen by -4.0%, while the Indian share has grown by +3.0%. The share of students from all other countries has inched up by +1.0%.

Though travel restrictions and lockdowns were responsible for the large drop in Chinese students in 2020, the fact that enrollment continues to decline points to other factors that are keeping them away. (See “Universities’ Financial Worry: Will Foreign Students Even Come Back?”) In interviews with The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, Chinese students cited safety concerns, visa delays, souring U.S.-China relations, and an increase in alternative options at home and in other countries as reasons why they had lost interest in studying in America.

The ongoing decline in Chinese students is denting revenue at universities around the country, many of which had come to rely on foreign students paying full freight after nearly two decades of rapid growth in international student enrollment. Though the growth had slowed in recent years, it did not begin falling until 2019-20. The decline is also a net negative for immigration, since international students often end up settling in the United States.

Though the ranks of Indian students are growing, the increase has not been enough to make up for the huge decline in Chinese students. But the changing balance is slowly reshaping the diversity of international education. While Chinese students tend to choose a range of majors, two-thirds of Indian students enroll in just three fields of study: engineering, math, and computer science.

When Chinese students began flocking to U.S. colleges in the mid-2000s, it reflected the desire to get a better education (and better salaries) than they could receive at home. The economy was rapidly growing, but the quality of its colleges and universities had not caught up. Now those same conditions are propelling young Indians to pursue degrees abroad, setting the stage for another wave of students.