The U.S. economy, technology companies, and American universities owe a debt to international students. Without international students, the United States would have far fewer graduate students and other highly-educated individuals with backgrounds in science and engineering, and an even more significant talent gap between economic demand and the ability to fill that demand. That is the conclusion of a new analysis of education data from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).

A significant warning sign in the data: The number of full-time international students enrolled in graduate-level electrical engineering at U.S. universities declined 19.5% between 2015 and 2019. The number of full-time international students enrolled in graduate-level computer and information sciences at U.S. universities fell 9.5% between 2016 and 2019. The decline is before the impact on enrollment of the U.S. policy blocking many Chinese graduate students from the United States, as well as the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Between 50% and 82% of the full-time graduate students in key technical fields at U.S. universities are international students. Ominously, most of the graduate students are from India and China—two countries where U.S. policies are preventing or discouraging individuals from studying in America. International students from India in graduate-level computer science and engineering at U.S. universities dropped by more than 25% between the 2016-17 and 2018-19 academic years. A Trump proclamation kept in place by the Biden administration is leading to visa denials for many Chinese graduate students, alarming U.S. analysts, universities, and employers.

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