International enrollment has been cited as one of the largest reasons behind Wichita State’s budget crisis by university administration.
Wichita State has had the largest number of international students of any Kansas public university since 2022.
But now international enrollment is down, particularly in graduate programs.
According to data from WSU’s Office of Planning and Analysis’s Fall 2025 Census, graduate international enrollment is down 18%, with undergraduate enrollment growing a little over 7%. U.S. immigration policy is a driver, but staff who work with international students said this is also a “natural decline.”
Vince Altum has worked in the Office of International Education for nearly 40 years and has served as its executive director for more than a decade. He said that one of the biggest recent changes to international enrollment has been a new travel ban on 40 countries that began on Jan. 1.
“That’s definitely going to start affecting every (program) in the U.S., including ours,” Altum said. “We are definitely seeing a decrease in students, but I fear it’s going to get far worse before it gets better.”
According to the Association of International Educators — a service that guides and supports international education programs across the country, including WSU’s — declines in international student enrollment have led to more than $1.1 billion of lost revenue across the country in 2025-26, $6 million of that in Kansas.
At a university level, international students pay a higher rate of tuition than domestic students, creating a larger impact to the university budget.
Compared to an in-state undergraduate student — who pays $259.75 per credit hour — international undergraduate students can pay up to $615.27 per credit hour.
There is a discounted rate for some international students called Global Select. Those in Global Select can pay $389.64 per credit hour. In January, WSU Chief Financial Officer David Miller said about half the international students are discounted and half aren’t.
Barriers to studying in the U.S.
Taliyah Winn / The Sunflower
Compared to a domestic student, international students must meet additional requirements in the enrollment process, including federal immigration policies, visas and higher costs.
A step all international students must take before attending an American university is obtaining a visa. There are several types of visas students can apply for.
According to Altum, 95% of international students at WSU are on F-1 or student visas.
An F-1 visa allows students to travel to the U.S. to study in a full-time program at universities, Students with this type of visa most commonly use personal or family funds to pay for college, according to Altum.
F-1 visa holders can participate in Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows them to apply for work authorization in the U.S. for a year after graduation, or up to three years for STEM fields.
Around 2% of international students are on J-1 visas, which are typically issued for exchange students, scholars or professors who are primarily funded by governments, institutions or organizations.
The visa application process is extensive. The Office of International Education uses an electronic manual provided by NAFSA, which helps guide international offices at American universities. The office uses the NAFSA manual to monitor student compliance in the visa process and track regulatory changes.
The process is long, and it has changed over time.
“The U.S. now vets social media for anyone who wants to get a visa,” Altum said. “So when you go to get a visa, a visa officer will take your phone, and you will have to show them all your social media, and they will go through it to make sure you’re not saying things against the U.S.”
This practice began to apply to student visa applicants in June 2025.
Once international students arrive on campus, they still have to remain in compliance to continue their education.
The Office of International Education helps students monitor compliance through the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. The office manages the system which looks at a lot of things when people are applying: class enrollment, finances and the amount of online classes students take.
Each semester, international students have to check in with the Office of International Education.
“As a part of that check-in process, we have a SEVIS agreement that they have to read that reeducates them on all the things they have to remember, because they can’t forget,” Altum said. “It’s a semesterly way to keep the regulations fresh in the student’s mind.”
Another natural part of the decline in international students is true for all students; sometimes, people decide to leave WSU for “one reason or another.”
“It could be culture shock when they first arrive,” Altum said. “It could be a family member died, and maybe they were their full source of funding for their college, so they couldn’t continue. In some cases, they’ve just decided that college was not for them. American students have those types of things too. So international students have those same things. It’s just costing them a fortune to come to that conclusion.”
Prospective students adapt to changing policies, interest in studying in the U.S. declines
Aaron Coffey, the assistant dean and executive director of graduate enrollment management, said that he’s noticed significant changes in the behavior of prospective graduate students in recent years.
“With all of these changes, there are few students that come to this process with the sense of urgency we typically see,” Coffey said. “Far more are coming with a ‘If I can’t make it this year, next year is fine,’ attitude. And that is not something we typically see.”
Admission and enrollment are what the university tracks for its fall census, but Coffey also notes the decline in applicants.
“We’re admitting fewer international students,” Coffey said. “We are getting fewer applications for international prospective students, and that is true from my knowledge and my network at most institutions across the country.”
“There’s just less interest in studying in the United States, and those that are interested have more hurdles to go through,” Coffey said. “The federal government has put more policies and practices in place that they have to go through. We are also seeing declines in visa approval rates from key countries.”
He said that even if students get admitted to the university, visa applications are “not getting approved at any rate close to what we were previously seeing.”
Coffey said that he thinks the decline also comes from an unpredictable job market and global competition.
“It’s not a simple problem, and there is no single cause for the challenges we are having in international recruitment and yielding international students now,” Coffey said. “It’s a global market… our competitors are not just in the United States, they are in countries all across the globe.”
The biggest area of decline for international graduate students is from India. Enrollment of Indian graduate students at WSU has decreased by 41.2% since 2024.
Part of this decline is due to a major boom in enrollment of Indian students after the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2021 to 2022, Indian graduate enrollment jumped from 564 to 1,455. Most of those students were in computer science. The large jump in demand caused the graduate program to go through major changes.
“Our volume of international students from India in computing programs was significant,” Coffey said. “I mean, just truly, truly something that we could have never anticipated, and so there were challenges there.”
Since graduate programs only last a few years, the graduation of students who were part of that boom caused a natural decline in enrollment numbers.
Now, Coffey has noticed more hesitancy from prospective students from India.
“Specifically in India, I think the biggest decline is just the hesitation to come because they’re not sure about their ability to be employed when they graduate. And we’ve heard that from our recent graduates, too.”
Retention and rebuilding enrollment
Retention and recruitment are the “uphill battles” the Office of International Education is attempting to address.
“(Our) priority is trying to retain as many students as we can and to get as many new students in that we can, knowing that it’s an uphill battle for the next three years, but it could be five years.”
Altum said that rebuilding will take time.
“We don’t know what the law will be in three months, I don’t know what the law will be in three years,” Coffey said. “… I can’t combat a national narrative. That is not anything any of us in higher education can do.”
So instead, Coffey focuses on what he can do.
“That’s really to build confidence and trust that WSU provides a great education, and if the education is what they want to get that job we can provide that education that they need to get that position,” Coffey said. “If they don’t have trust in the workforce or in an industry to hire people, there’s not a lot I can do other than connect them with career services.”
But the intention is to maintain WSU’s role as a school that welcomes international students.
“We obviously enjoy working with international students. I don’t want our population of international students to dwindle so far down,” Altum said. “They’re an important source of diversity and internationalization on the campus. We want them around.”
“It won’t just be Wichita State that has these challenges due to the loss of our international student population,” Coffey said. “It will be the community that loses so much more than just money, but the opportunity to have these students integrated into our communities and become fully fledged community members.”
This article was republished here with the permission of: The Sunflower