The loss of foreign students will impact the United States’ economy, new data shared with Newsweek on Tuesday revealed.
With international students spending an average of $35,000 per year in their local communities, a 10 percent drop in this spending could lead to a $3.4 billion dent in U.S. GDP, data from economic analysis platform Implan found.
“This is not a college town problem and it’s not an education state problem. It’s an effect that is going to ripple through the broader economy,” Bjorn Markeson, academic divisional director at Implan, told Newsweek.
“It’s not going to be immediate. It’s going to take some time. But it’s a sizable amount of economic activity that is associated with international students, and those ripple effects are going to be felt both in communities that have colleges and universities and in the economy as a whole.”
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Commerce for comment via email Tuesday morning.
Why It Matters
The Trump administration has taken a tougher stance on F-1 student visa holders in recent months, with more than 6,000 revoked since January for a variety of reasons, including alleged immigration law violations. Colleges and internation student advocates have warned that the loss of thousands of temporary immigrants could negatively impact schools and the communities they sit within.
What To Know
The data released by Implan looked at the potential monetary impact of losing new students, which may not fully be seen until next school year.
Across the country, about 26,800 jobs could be lost, along with $1.8 billion in labor income for every 10 percent drop in spending by foreign students who choose to stay at home or go elsewhere.
As Newsweek previously reported, more than 1.5 million foreign students were enrolled in schools across the country in fiscal year 2024, up 5 percent on the previous year. The majority came from China and India, countries whose immigrants are seeing increasing pushback from those on the right concerned about high levels of immigration.
Amid concerns in college campus protests around the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Trump administration began revoking student visa holders’ legal status in the spring. Only a few hundred saw their visas revoked for allegedly being pro-Hamas, with the vast majority picked up on minor offenses, such as traffic violations.
The Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration previously warned that the efforts would deter future international students, leading the U.S. to lose at least $44 billion in economic activity annually.
Implan’s data reflected similar potential losses, finding that four states would likely see the biggest impact of the White House’s policies:
- Texas: 2,500 jobs and $300 million in GDP
- Massachusetts: 1,800 jobs and $260 million in GDP
- North Carolina: 600 jobs and $70 million in GDP
- Wisconsin: 400 jobs and $44 million in GDP
When it comes to the sectors likely to be affected, Implan predicted that every 10 percent drop in student visa holder spending would lead to job losses in these key sectors:
- Food service workers: 2,800
- Retail sales: 2,400
- Office support roles: 2,300
- Health care support staff: 1,700
- Material movers: 1,600
Markeson told Newsweek that it would take time for all the effects to be felt, depending on how many students decide to return or avoid applying for student visas in the first place.
“It’ll hit first in retailers, restaurants, local service providers, and then it’ll slowly ripple through the economy to warehousing, to transportation, to manufacturers,” Markeson said. “That’s going to take a little more time because it takes time for those dollars to flow through and for businesses to make those kinds of decisions.”
Uncertainty was a key word in this, Markeson said, as the shifts in immigration policy happened so rapidly and the new school year arrived already. However, the readily available data on F-1 visa holders did mean that this immigrant group was a helpful indicator of how Trump’s policies were playing out more widely.
“The broader shifts in policy around immigration are a little harder to wrap your hands around in terms of numbers and spending and locations, but a similar principle is going to follow,” he said. “That with a networked economy, the effects, the economic effects may hit specifically in given geographic areas that have high proportions of immigrants living there, but their expenditure patterns ripple through the economy and are going to touch it in a lot of different places much further afield.”
What People Are Saying
Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told Newsweek in June: “We have close to 400,000 international students participating in some form of training that directly benefits American employers, industry, research across the country.
“This is, again, beyond thinking about the $44 billion, but thinking about the actual work, talent, skills that could be lost if we do not ensure that international students want to come here. Our premier destination role is not assured, it is fragile.”
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital on August 18: “Every single student visa revoked under the Trump administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States. About 4,000 visas alone have been revoked because these visitors broke the law while visiting our country, including records of assault and DUIs.”
What Happens Next
The Trump administration said it has placed all U.S. visa holders—including students—under continuing review, while there have also been moves to increase vetting at U.S. embassies and consulates when international students apply for the first time. It is yet to be seen what impact these policies will have on student visa arrivals in the coming year.
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