The University of Arizona is seeing a decrease in applications from international students, school officials tell KGUN9.
Compared to this time last year, applications are down 22% for undergrads and 9% for graduate students, school officials said. Although the percentage drop is higher at the undergraduate level, the impact is more dramatic at the graduate level because a higher percentage of them are from outside of the United States. In fact records indicate, for the past five years, approximately 1 out of 5 or 20% of the graduate students are international. That's compared to only 7% of undergrad students.
The Univeristy of Arizona is not the only university seeing a decrease in applications from international students. The Associated Press recently reported nearly half of the nation's 25 largest public universities saw international undergraduate application numbers decline since last year. According to AP, the decline could be tied to President Donald Trump's stance on immigration.
However, officials at the University of Arizona are not making any assumptions. A spokesperson provided KGUN9 with the following statement:
"We don't have any data pointing to the reasons for the decline. we cannot speculate on what the reasons might be." Pam Scott, Univeristy of Arizona spokersperson.
Experts say nearly 1 million international students attend colleges and universities across the country, and they are paying big bucks for it. A recent study from from Selfscore, a company providing financial services to international students, reveals that foreign students pay up to three times more than in-state students at public universities. That study also shows that in 2015, the country's public universities obtained more than $9 billion in tuition and fees from foreign students.
Meantime, several schools are planning to ramp up their marketing efforts to combat growing fears among foreign students. No word yet on what us plans to do.
