麻省大学波士顿分校曾大力招收国际学生 如今国际学生人数却在减少
【中美创新时报2025年11月16日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）包括麻省大学波士顿分校在内的一些录取门槛较低的大学，在今年秋季国际学生人数下降后，正在努力拓展国际学生的招生来源。对此，《波士顿环球报》记者迪蒂·科利作了下述详细报道。
今年秋天，马萨诸塞大学波士顿分校的一位招生人员开启了一次国际之旅，但她的行程并没有像往常那样包括中国、印度和越南——这些国家是该校国际学生的主要来源地。相反，她选择了希腊和中东地区——约旦、 科威特、阿联酋、阿曼、卡塔尔、巴林以及沙特阿拉伯的三个城市。
这次旅行标志着该校的战略转变，由于白宫破坏了来自国外学生的传统途径，该校正在扩大国际申请者的招生范围。
自上任以来，特朗普政府一直向高校施压，要求其减少国际学生的招生，限制来自19个国家的公民入境，并针对参与校园抗议活动的国际学生。 5月份暂停签证审核——专家表示，印度尚未完全解除这一限制——导致来自世界各地的学生和研究人员申请美国大学的人数锐减。现在，一些人警告说，感到不受欢迎的国际学生未来可能会完全放弃赴美留学。
本学年，麻省大学波士顿分校的国际学生申请人数（大部分是在政策大幅调整之前提交的）实际上有所增加。然而，今年秋季入学的国际学生人数却减少了约250人，比2024年减少了17%。
“明年会是什么样子？”麻省大学波士顿分校招生副校长约翰·德鲁说，“我们也在问自己同样的问题。”
目前答案尚不明确。最新的联邦数据显示，今年秋季美国有效学生签证数量下降不到1%，但部分院校的降幅远大于其他院校。国际教育协会将于周一发布其对全美约800所高校的年度调查报告，届时或许能提供更清晰的答案。
许多顶尖大学基本未受影响；例如，东北大学、哈佛大学和波士顿学院的国际学生人数几乎没有下降或完全没有下降。但一些公立大学，由于其国际学生总数通常较少，正面临着更大的相对降幅：菲奇堡州立大学今年秋季的国际学生人数减少了约40人。麻省艺术与设计学院的国际学生人数从去年的96人下降到76人。虽然麻省大学阿默斯特分校的国际学生人数仅下降了5%，至4304人，但麻省大学波士顿分校的国际学生人数下降了超过六分之一，从去年的1481人降至目前的1227人。
波士顿学院国际高等教育中心主任杰拉尔多·布兰科表示，大学招生竞争程度是关键因素之一。该中心致力于研究世界各地的海外高等教育。他还补充说，那些“有候补名单”的学校，如果已被录取的国际学生遇到签证问题，就可以录取其他申请人来顶替他们。但并非所有学校都有这种选择。
布兰科说：“我看到的分歧与其说是大学是公立还是私立，不如说是录取标准的问题。我们在2025年看到的针对国际学生的袭击事件无疑是一种新的动态，在很多方面都是前所未有的。”
这引发了人们对那些依赖国际学生支付学费、 开展研究以及在校园内进行文化交流的大学未来的担忧。
早在2011年，麻省大学波士顿分校就决定招收更多来自马萨诸塞州以外的全额自费学生，以改善其财政状况。当时，该校因 财务管理不善而饱受诟病，一度面临高达3000万美元的赤字，而国际学生人数的增长则成为一个稳定的稳定来源。
布兰科表示，2010 年该校外国留学生人数不足 1000 人，十年间翻了一番，到 2020 年达到 1619 人。这有助于麻省大学波士顿分校在大学排名中提升，并使该校能够继续招收州内大部分学生。
在麻省大学波士顿分校，国际学生的学费是麻省居民的两倍多，大约4万美元的学费和杂费，而州内学生的学费和杂费约为1.7万美元。该校表示，这有助于弥补过去二十年来州政府对高等教育拨款的减少。
布兰科说：“人们认为对高等教育的投资会体现马萨诸塞州的蓝州价值观。但就高等教育经费而言，马萨诸塞州在全美排名垫底。”
麻省大学波士顿分校拥有广泛的课程设置、良好的毕业率和就业前景，以及优越的地理位置，因此“在全球范围内具有巨大的吸引力”，国际学生咨询服务机构 Shorelight Education 的首席执行官 Tom Dretler 表示。
该组织过去曾与麻省大学波士顿分校、阿默斯特学院以及在线课程合作，帮助招收国际学生。
今年，麻省大学波士顿分校跻身顶尖研究型大学之列，招收了有史以来规模最大的州内学生班级，并且学年结束时实现了盈余——这些因素 无疑将提升其在海外的吸引力。招生主管德鲁表示，学校将继续致力于实现 国际学生群体的多元化，并帮助申请者做好签证等待时间延长的准备。
但对于留学生以及依赖他们的学校来说，很多事情都悬而未决。联邦官员五月份曾表示将“严厉打击”中国学生的签证，但最终并未付诸实施。就在周一，特朗普总统在接受福克斯新闻采访时表示，他看到了国际学生的价值以及他们带来的“数万亿美元”，但随后又暗示将在本周晚些时候出台更多限制措施。
这种来回奔波正在造成损失。在菲奇堡州立大学，招生副校长帕姆·麦卡弗里称国际学生是这所拥有6100名学生的校园的“重要组成部分”，但他们的数量却急剧下降，从2023年的271人减少到今年的148人。
“我们的国际学生群体能够感受到赴美留学机会的变化，”她说。“我不想替他们说话。但总的来说，他们意识到，能够让他们出国留学的条件可能与以往不同了。”
尽管如此，人们对就读美国大学的兴趣依然坚挺，德雷特勒表示，部分原因是加拿大、英国和澳大利亚——其他国际教育领域的主要国家——都放缓了招生速度。根据一项针对约100所院校的指数分析，除印度和巴基斯坦以外，明年美国大学的国际申请人数将增长75%。
“如果美国恢复正常运转，”德雷特勒说，“这里就是学生们想去的地方。”
题图：本学年，来自海外的麻省大学波士顿分校申请人数（大部分是在政策大幅调整之前提交的）实际上有所增加。苏珊娜·克雷特/《波士顿环球报》工作人员
附原英文报道：
UMass Boston made a big bet on international students. Now, fewer are coming.
Less-selective colleges, including UMass Boston, are diversifying where they recruit foreign students from after seeing declines this fall
By Diti Kohli Globe Staff,Updated November 15, 2025, 6:00 a.m.
For this school year, applications from abroad to UMass Boston — which were mostly submitted before the mass of policy changes — actually increased.Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
When a recruiter for the University of Massachusetts Boston set off on an international trip this fall, the itinerary did not include the usual stops in China, India, and Vietnam, countries that generate most of the school’s international students. Instead, she wound her way through Greece and the Middle East — Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and three cities in Saudi Arabia.
The trip marked a strategic shift for the school, which is casting a wider net for international applicants as the traditional pathways of students from abroad are fractured by the White House.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has pressured colleges to enroll fewer international students, restricted travel from 19 countries, and targeted international students involved in campus protests. A pause on visa screenings in May — one that experts say has not been fully lifted in India — thinned the stream of students and researchers from around the world applying to US universities. Now some warn that international students, feeling unwelcome, may eschew the United States altogether in the future.
For this school year, applications from abroad to UMass Boston — which were mostly submitted before the mass of policy changes — actually increased. Yet this fall around 250 fewer foreign students arrived on campus, a 17 percent decrease from 2024.
“What does this look like next year?” said John Drew, vice president of enrollment at UMass Boston. “We’re asking ourselves the same.”
Right now, the answer is unclear. New federal data shows that the number of active student visas in the United States decreased by less than 1 percent this fall, but some schools are seeing a sharper downturn than others. A clearer picture may come together Monday when the Institute of International Education releases its annual survey of 800-some colleges nationwide.
Many elite colleges have emerged largely unscathed; Northeastern, Harvard, and Boston College, for instance, reported slight or no declines in foreign students. But some public universities, which generally educate fewer international students overall, are facing larger relative declines: Fitchburg State saw around 40 fewer foreign students this fall. The Massachusetts College of Art and Design is down to 76 international students from 96 a year ago. And while UMass Amherst saw a modest 5 percent decline in international students, to 4,304, UMass Boston’s figures dropped by more than one-sixth, from 1,481 last year to 1,227 now.
One key factor is how competitive a college is for admissions, said Gerardo Blanco, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, which researches foreign higher education around the world. Schools with the “luxury of a wait list” can admit another applicant in place of an accepted international student if they face visa trouble, he added. Not everyone has that option.
“The division that I see is not so much about whether a college is public and private, but more along the lines of selectivity,” Blanco said. “The kind of attacks we have seen in 2025 towards international students are certainly a new dynamic and, in many ways, unprecedented.”
It raises questions for the future of colleges that rely on international students for tuition, research, and a cultural exchange of ideas on campus.
As early as 2011, UMass Boston decided that recruiting more full-pay students from outside of Massachusetts would help bolster its finances. As the school faced criticisms of poor financial management, and deficits that at one point were estimated to be $30 million, the growth of international students became a reliable constant.
A cohort of fewer than 1,000 foreign students in 2010 doubled over the decade to 1,619 in 2020. It aided UMass Boston in its rise up the college rankings and allowed the university to continue enrolling most of its students from inside the state, Blanco said.
At UMass Boston, international students pay more than twice as much to attend as Massachusetts residents do, roughly $40,000 in tuition and fees, compared with about $17,000 in-state. That, the school says, has helped to offset reduced state funding for higher ed over the last two decades.
“People think the investments in higher education would mirror the blue-state values” in Massachusetts, Blanco said. “But Massachusetts, in terms of the funding of higher education, is among the bottom in the whole country.”
With its broad set of programs, strong graduation and job outcomes, and attractive location, UMass Boston had “huge appeal globally,” said Tom Dretler, chief executive of the international student advising service Shorelight Education.
The organization has partnered with UMass Boston, Amherst, and online programs in the past to help recruit international students.
This year, UMass Boston became a top-tier research university, admitted its largest class of in-state students ever, and finished the year with a surplus — factors that should only increase its appeal abroad. Drew, the enrollment administrator, said the university will keep aiming to diversify its international student population and preparing applicants for longer wait times for visas.
But for foreign students, and the schools that have come to rely on them, much is up in the air. Federal officials said in May that they would “aggressively revoke” Chinese students’ visas, but that did not happen. Just on Monday, President Trump told Fox News that he sees the value of international students and the “trillions of dollars” they bring in, only to float the idea of additional restrictions later in the week.
And the back and forth is taking a toll. At Fitchburg State, where vice president of enrollment Pam McCaffrey called international students a “vital part” of the 6,100-student campus, their numbers have fallen sharply, from 271 in 2023 to 148 this year.
“Our international population could sense a change in the opportunities to study abroad in the United States,” she said. “I don’t want to put words in their mouths. But overall, they were aware that the situation that would allow them to study abroad may not be the same.”
Still, interest in attending US universities is stubbornly resilient, in part, Dretler said, because Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia — other major players in international education — have each slowed their own admissions. International applications to US colleges are up 75 percent for the next year, outside of India and Pakistan, according to an index analysis of around 100 institutions.
”If the US is back on,” Dretler said, “this is where students want to go.”
