Fall 2021 sees 4% uptick in international student enrollments in the US

Fall 2021 semester admissions mostly took place in August-September when international student influx resumed after the second Covid-19 wave began subsiding in several nations

After posting a 15 per cent decline in new international students for the academic year 2020-21 based on the latest Open Doors 2021 report, higher education institutions in the US have seen a rebound in the Fall 2021, with an increase of four per cent. Fall 2021 semester admissions mostly took place in August-September 2021 when the influx of international student resumed after the second wave of Covid-19 began subsiding in several nations.

The latest Fall 2021 International Student Enrollment Snapshot by the US-based Institute of International Education (IIE), which includes findings of over 860 US higher education institutions on current patterns in international student enrollment as of fall 2021 (2021/22 academic year), has shown signs of revival.

The findings of the Fall Snapshot reflect the resilience of US higher education institutes and student mobility during the Covid-19 pandemic. Over 860 institutions, accounting for 59 per cent of all international students in Open Doors 2021, participated in the Fall Snapshot.

For instance, higher education institutes report a 68 per cent rise in the number of new international students enrolling at an institution in the US or online from abroad, as compared to a 46 per cent decline reported in fall 2020 (Open Doors 2021). On the other hand, 70 per cent of institutes show an increase in new international student enrollment, 10 per cent show the number to be the same as last year, and 20 per cent report a drop.

While the total number of international students including all enrolled and optional practical training (OPT) increased by four percent, a rebound from the 15 percent decrease due to the COVID-19 pandemic in fall 2020, the total number of enrolled students (undergraduate, graduate, and non-degree students) at U.S. colleges and universities increased by eight percent. This indicates a marked improvement over the prior year when total international student enrollments fell by 17 percent (Open Doors 2021).

The number of international students pursuing employment opportunities following their academic studies on OPT continues to decrease (-10 percent). As in last year, this is in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also due to a shrinking OPT base as lower numbers of students have been eligible for OPT after the surge from the STEM Extension.

Higher education institutions in the US are also committed to international students’ studying in-person with 99 percent of responding institutions holding classes in-person or implementing a hybrid model. Only one percent of institutions are offering online classes only in fall 2021. Moreover, at least 65 percent of the reported international students are on campus in the United States.

Further, the US institutions are also prioritizing international students in terms of outreach and recruitment such as India (56 per cent) and China (51 per cent), as well as to international students at U.S. high schools (44 percent). For outreach and recruitment to prospective international students, responding institutions are leveraging current international students (64 percent), online recruitment events (56 percent), and social media outreach (55 percent).

At the same time, 77 percent of reporting institutions indicate that financial support for their student recruitment efforts is the same or higher than in previous years.

The latest Open Doors Report 2021 for academic year 2020-21 has shown a decline of 15 per cent in number of international students in the US for 2020-21, as against a decline of 1.8 per cent in 2019-20, owing to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The highest annual decline of 15 per cent for the US came amid countries affected by waves and variants of the Covid-19 pandemic, thereby impacting international travel and overseas education. The highest annual growth in increase in international students that the US saw in the recent past was in 2014-15 when it clocked a 10 per cent growth. The annual growth has ever since been falling to 7.1 per cent in 2015-16, 3.4 per cent in 2016-17, 1.5 per cent in 2017-18 and 0.05 per cent in 2018-19.

China and India, which account for 53 per cent of total international students in the US, have seen a decline of 15 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively. Number of annual Chinese students, accounting for 35 per cent of total international students in the US, fell to 317,299. Indian students comprised nearly 20 percent of overseas students in the US, with 167,582 students in the 2020-2021 academic year.