International Education in the USA: The Questions We Need to Ask

Coming up with simple answers to the potential impact of Donald Trump’s policy changes on the USA as a global study destination is difficult.

In March, so far, we’ve had references to banning Chinese visas, penalising public universities that allow international students to protest on campus and drastic defunding of government scholarships (along with staff furlough at the Institute of International Education).

The volume and scope of these changes is difficult to keep up with, compounded by the fact that some are concrete policy decisions and others… might not be.

Simple answers are hard. But questions and discussion are important.

That’s what we’ll be focussing on at our event next week, ‘The Future of Higher Education – Championing Internationalization in the US’: bringing together a range of experts, including Dr. Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, to share experiences from the sector and insights into how schools can continue to engage with, guide and support international students considering the USA right now.

Ahead of that, I want to set out some of the questions we might want to ask right now and look at how our Keystone Higher Ed Insights can inform the discussion around them.

In doing that, I’ll be drawing on a unique combination of data: using our Share of Search data to map how audience behaviour is actually changing in real-time and using our Pulse survey data to understand the feelings and attitudes that are driving that change.

Are audiences actually less interested in the USA?

The USA is still an immensely popular study destination. Over half a million prospective students have used Keystone sites to look for US study options in March so far. And by the time you read this, that number will be higher.

What’s more, search interest in the USA has recently begun trending back up:

The chart above uses Keystone’s Share of Search to track the % of international searches that are for the USA vs other destinations. This gives us the most accurate view of how real interest in the USA is changing on our platforms (as opposed to simply looking at traffic to them).

What we see is that interest in the USA fell during the autumn, in the run-up to and through the November election, but February saw a sharp recovery.

I’d be wary of drawing simplistic conclusions from this (far better to discuss and reflect) but it looks like audience interest may be recovering.

So, let’s ask: what do we do to guide and reassure students in a world where barriers to study abroad in the USA may be appearing, but interest remains robust?

Our data also lets us look at trends for individual audiences – which paints an intriguing picture.

It’s clear from this that the most impacted audiences are Africa and South Asia, with the latter still trending down in terms of US interest. European interest, meanwhile, has recovered a lot. And interest from East Asia (including China) has been highly volatile.

Does this mean that the profile of students searching for the USA likely to change? And do we need to approach different audiences differently?

Is perception of the USA changing?

We know how search interest in the USA is evolving, but what can we say about the attitudes driving that? Here’s where our Pulse data becomes very useful.

The simplest question to ask is whether Trump’s election is making audiences less likely to consider US study. Interestingly, it’s a fairly even split.

Looking at Pulse data from 2025 so far, we see that prospective students aren’t necessarily put off by Trump and the largest segment is those that are unsure – which, makes a lot of sense given the unpredictable nature of Trump’s policies.

There is a clear difference when we split by gender though. Prospective female students are far more likely to be reconsidering study in the USA than their male counterparts.

We’re also seeing a clear difference in attitudes to the USA compared to other destinations. Taking data from February, we see that prospective international students are significantly more likely to be concerned about their safety whilst study in the USA: nearly 20% of prospective students identify this as a concern, compared to only 14% for the UK.

Finally, audiences are less likely to rate the USA as a ‘welcoming’ destination for international study.

Compared to other ‘big 4’ destinations (Australia, Canada and the UK) the USA is less likely to be viewed as welcoming and more likely to be regarded as outright unwelcoming; though we should note that the latter represents a very small proportion of responses overall. The USA also isn’t particularly far off Australia and Canada (both of which are enacting or proposing significant international education policy changes of their own).

So, let’s ask: is the biggest immediate impact of Trump’s election actually a rise in uncertainty about the USA? And is that actually something we can address in our student communications?

 How important is government funding?

Finally, given that the most drastic and unfortunate policy decision taken by Trump so far is to defund government scholarships, can we predict how significant this is likely to be?

It goes without saying that scholarships and other forms of financial aid are important to international students – particularly in destinations like the USA where the initial ‘sticker price’ of a program can appear relatively high.

Our Pulse data lets us drill down into this and see how students intend to fund:

Audiences considering the USA are more likely to rely on government scholarships or on university scholarships (which may well be government funded). They’re also significantly less likely to be paying for study using their own means, or support from their family. What’s more, ‘unclear information on funding opportunities’ is the biggest blocker stopping students from applying to US schools they would otherwise have considered – with nearly 20% selecting this option.

So, let’s ask: how can we support students whose funding plans may be impacted by the recent cuts? And what other information might they now need? 

Let's keep the conversation going

All of this reminds us that the impact of Trump is highly complicated. But focussing on the questions students might be asking can lead us towards the answers they probably need. That’s what we’ll be using our data – and the expertise of our speakers and attendees – to explore on March 28^th, at our event: The Future of Higher Education – Championing Internationalization in the US.