The number of international students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities reached an all-time high last school year, with India surpassing China as the top sending country and California remaining the top sending country, according to a new report.

Data Institute of International Education More than 1.1 million foreign students, more than half of whom are Chinese or Indian citizens, are in the United States for undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate work study programs in 2023-24, a figure that rose 7% from the previous year, it said.

The report noted that the largest portion of international students attend institutions in California, with USC, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and UCLA receiving the most attention, and that Chinese students far outnumber Indians.

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But under a second Trump administration, education and labor experts question the future landscape and availability of a record number of visas for foreign students, including Chinese scholars who have become a mainstay at several University of California campuses.

Foreign enrollment at U.S. universities, which usually increases each year, fell 15% during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term. Much of this was due to a sharp decline during the COVID-19 lockdown as borders closed and classes moved online.

However, this trend started before the pandemic. Trump began his presidency by imposing a travel ban on citizens of many Muslim-majority countries entering the United States. He then started a trade war with China. universities Reports of visa delays, federal scrutiny of their research and new restrictions in California for Chinese academics partnership With China and Chinese companies.

Experts said it’s difficult to predict what international students might face during Trump’s second term. Trump said he would impose a new travel and refugee ban “on Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya or anywhere that threatens our security.” He said he continues to view China as an economic and security rival and has vowed to impose deep tariffs on imports.

His campaign also included a promise to “automatically” issue green cards (permanent residence permits) to foreign graduates of U.S. universities.

“Rhetoric and campaigning are important because they point to future policies,” said Gaurav Khanna, an economist at UC San Diego who studies foreign students and workers in the labor market.

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“The flow of Chinese students may remain low under the Trump administration, and for Indians, it depends on what happens with the H1B policy,” Khanna said, referring to a visa program widely used by companies to hire Indian workers in fields such as technology.

The president-elect’s promises to deport people in the country illegally and his portrayal of immigrants as criminals could also affect aliens’ records, experts said.

“There is a perception around the world that the United States is not the open society it was once perceived to be internationally and is no longer generally friendly to foreign students, including in places like Africa from which we need to source resources strategically,” said John Aubrey Douglass. UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Higher Education.

However, Allan E. Goodman, executive director of the Institute of International Education, said he did not expect a major drop in the number of foreign students during the Trump era.

“The data from previous periods tells us that international registrations tend to increase over time, except under extraordinary circumstances,” Goodman said during a briefing. He pointed to declines during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Covid-19 quarantine in 2020 as exceptions.

Goodman said Chinese students, in particular, “are welcome here in times of hot and cold, good and bad relations.”

The increase in the number of Indian students (overtaking Chinese for the first time since 2009) was due to a 41% increase in the number of participants in “Optional Practical Training” in the US, the institute’s report said. The program temporarily extends student visas to allow for job training during or after completion of education.

More than 97,000 Indians were in the United States for this type of training; this represented 29% of all Indians on student visas. Most of the 331,602 Indian students in the US (59%) were in graduate programs. A smaller portion (44%) of the 277,398 Chinese students in the United States were at the graduate level. In total, about 12,000 fewer Chinese students attended U.S. schools last year.

“The difference can be explained by several factors, especially changes in the demographic structure of the two countries,” said Mirka Martel, head of research, evaluation and learning at the Institute of International Education.

“The presence of a significant number of U.S.-educated professors in China has allowed Chinese graduate students to remain at home and continue to benefit from U.S. academic pedagogy and research networks,” he said. Martel also pointed to the increasing number of college-aged Indians as part of why the group is growing in the United States.

In California, enrollment patterns by country were slightly different.

In California, 36% of 140,858 international students were Chinese and 20% were Indian. One reason for the prevalence of Chinese in the state: The University of California system, which receives billions of dollars in federal grants and is home to significant numbers of Chinese faculty and students.

USC had the most international students with 17,469. It was followed by UC Berkeley with 12 thousand 441, UC San Diego with 10 thousand 467 and UCLA with 10 thousand 446.

Overall, STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) were by far the most popular.

A significant increase in the number of students from parts of Africa was also reported in nearly 6,000 higher education institutions surveyed by the group. Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa were among the continent’s top or fastest-growing countries sending students to the United States.

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This story first appeared on: Los Angeles Times.