Colleges are bracing for a further decline in international student enrollment, especially in graduate programs, after the Trump administration restricted the duration of student visas and flexibility of degree programs.
The move earlier this month scrapped a longstanding policy that tied visas to the length of a student’s program, without time constraints. Under the change, which takes effect in September, students have an initial four-year window and will be required to apply for an extension beyond that.
New England schools like MIT, with competitive doctoral programs that draw large numbers of foreign students, will be especially affected, as most degrees take longer on average to complete.
At MIT, where international students made up 40 percent of the graduate student body in the last school year, professors said they worry the changes will make it harder to recruit future classes and lead to a decline in the world-class work produced from the programs.
“It’s a real shot in the foot for American research in areas that I think we’re very strong and competitive across the world,” said Joseph Formaggio, a professor of physics at MIT. “Part of that is the ability to pull in talent from all over the world to come to us.”
The Trump administration said the new rule targets students who perpetually enroll in different programs to maintain their immigration status, although there is no hard evidence to back up that trend. Many professors and graduate students see the changes as the latest blow to international student enrollment on campuses.
The changes will apply to forthcoming applicants and also impact current visa holders. For students studying on an F-1 visa, a four-year window will start when the new rule goes into effect. Also off the table without approval from immigration officers for graduate students: switching majors, transferring schools, or pursuing another degree of the same level. (Undergraduates can switch schools or pursue another course of study after one year.)
The time restrictions present an obvious hurdle for PhD students, Formaggio said. In his two decades at MIT, PhD programs have consisted of three main components: a requirement to take and teach advanced coursework, conduct research, and publish findings.
In the physics department, that takes 5½ years on average. The National Science Foundation reported a median of 5.7 years to complete a doctoral program, based on a survey of students in 2024.
“I think students will just be discouraged to study here, and they’ll go somewhere else,” Formaggio said.
Scott Hughes, the associate department head for physics at MIT, said he is encouraging prospective foreign graduate students to look at programs in Europe, where there are fewer concerns about funding cuts or immigration issues.
“We’re going to be losing good people. Nations that certain people would consider to be our competitors are going to gain from them,” he said.
A strong emphasis in US programs is placed on teaching. Hughes said he has seen collaboration between undergraduate and doctoral students lead to new research questions and papers. But now, if doctoral students are facing a four-year timeline, the pressure will increase to allocate more time to their thesis.
Under the new policy, graduate students would also be barred from changing programs or following their professor to another university.
“That is a huge problem, especially if you are uprooting yourself from some other country and coming all the way over to the US,” said a postdoctoral fellow at MIT from India, who is about to start his second year and asked not to be named for fear of endangering his immigration status. “That is definitely going to decrease enrollment in programs.”
Immigration restrictions have been a key pillar in the Trump administration’s attempt to reshape higher education in his second term. The president has attempted to abruptly cancel student visas and targeted foreign nationals at specific schools, like Harvard.
While courts have overturned most measures, fewer graduate students were already enrolling in US programs before the visa changes were announced.
At MIT, president Sally Kornbluth warned that graduate student enrollment was down 20 percent in May, outside of the business school, electrical engineering, and computer science. Alan Garber, the president of Harvard, said the number of postdoctoral fellows there has declined “quite a bit in the past year,” though he did not give exact numbers.
The decline in tuition payments alone contributed to an estimated $92.1 million loss for the Massachusetts economy, the third-largest loss among states, according to NAFSA, a nonprofit for international educators. The estimated losses do not account for student contributions to the local economy or impact after graduation like finding jobs or participating in the rental market.
Ahead of the September deadline for the visa changes to take effect, schools in the Boston area are holding informational town halls for international students to help them make sense of the new rules. International students are being encouraged not to leave the country after Sept. 15, and schools, including MIT, are posting their own interpretations of the changes.
But the rule could be upended before it goes into effect, said Dan Berger, an immigration attorney from Northampton who recently led a question-and-answer session for students, faculty, and staff at Columbia on the topic. Congress, he said, could challenge the new policy under the Congressional Review Act or pass a law to counter the change. And a lawsuit could be filed trying to block it, he said.
Ye, a PhD student at MIT from Canada who asked to be identified by his middle name, said he worries about the role immigration officers will play in authorizing extensions, given the government’s aggressive crackdown. He recently completed his first year and now will be given a four-year window to finish the remainder of his degree.
“The rule means that you need to get it approved by some bureaucrat that thinks that your work is worthy enough to be worked on in the US,” he said.
Ye originally hoped to pursue a career in academia after his doctorate and said that obtaining an advanced degree felt like an opportunity to “do the most science you can, to get the most fundamental discoveries you can, to advance the actual world and the actual pursuit of science.”
With the rule changes, he said, academia feels more like completing tasks on a checklist with a new message: “Come in and get out.”
Michaela Towfighi can be reached at michaela.towfighi@globe.com. Follow her on X @michaelatowfghi.