The number of international students arriving in the US has sharply declined, even as India continues to remain the top source of foreign students in American universities, a new Open Doors study revealed on Monday.

According to report, first-time enrolments across the US colleges and universities fell 17 per cent in fall 2025, signalling what experts say could be a worrying trend for the country’s higher-education sector.

Nearly, 60 per cent institutes reported a drop in fresh international admissions, with only 30 per cent seeing an uptick.

Open Doors — a leading data resource backed by the US State Department —attributed the shifting pattern largely to the differing fortunes of academic levels. Undergraduate numbers rose by 5 per cent, but new graduate enrolments plunged 15 per cent,

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