Global trends in international enrolments and policies as we head into 2026
At the end of 2025, educators across major study abroad destinations are facing markedly different circumstances than in the post-pandemic years following 2020. In many Western countries, governments are constraining international student enrolments, while in Asia and some parts of Europe, the reverse is true.
Australia
Enrolments: In 2024, there were 821,555 international students (in all sub-sectors) in Australia, a 9% increase over 2023. But since then, fewer international students have been submitting applications, deterred by a raft of government policies, high rejection rates, and visa application fee hikes. Applications reached 427,000 in 2024/25 compared with 600,000 the previous year, according to an update from Matthew Noble, Assistant Secretary for Temporary Visas at the Department of Home Affairs, at the Education Consultants Association of Australia (ECAA) 2025 held this September. The decrease was fuelled by lower applications for VET and ELICOS institutions.
Relevant policies: Over the past two years, Australian educators have been more challenged than in the past in their overseas recruitment as various government stakeholders propose ways of curtailing foreign student enrolments. These proposals involve industry consultation, Senate hearings, votes, and more. Sometimes they are passed, and sometimes they aren’t. But the whole process introduces uncertainty into the environment – for institutions and students alike.
Legislation and related ministerial directives have centred on slowing visa processing times for certain categories of institution, heavily scrutinising agent use, revoking institutions/programmes’ authorisation to operate in some cases, increasing visa application fees, and increasing financial requirements for international students. At some points over the past two years, visa rejections have surged, though they are currently (as of fall 2025) at 18%, lower than last year. The Australian approach is to focus on quality of education provision and of international students rather than on quantity of enrolments.
Canada
Enrolments: The most recent data available is 2024, a year in which Canadian institutions at all levels enrolled 997,820 international students in programmes of at least six months. This compares to 1,040,985 in 2023 and represents a 4.1% decrease.
When full-year data for 2025 becomes available, we may see a much steeper year-over-year decrease. Overall study permit application volumes were down roughly -50% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, and approval rates for new study permit applications fell to 30% through June 2025 compared to 51% for the same period in 2024.
In fact, current projections indicate that Canada may only approve around 80,000 new study permits in 2025 – more than 230,000 below the cap for this year. If that projection holds, that will be the lowest volume of new study permits issued in a decade, and it will fall even below the 2020 COVID level.
Relevant policies: In January 2024, Canada's immigration ministry (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC) announced a two-year cap on the number of new study permits issued to international students with a target of 364,000 approved study permits for the year. The actual number ended up being 267,890 – a roughly -48% reduction from 2023 levels and nearly 100,000 study permits below the official target.
Caps were in place for 2025 and now for 2026 as well, with some modifications (e.g., master’s and doctoral programmes are not affected by the 2026 cap). Still, the new cap – 408,000, of which more than half will be extensions for current and returning students – is 7% lower than the 2025 target of 437,000 and 16% lower than the 2024 target of 485,000.
Canada is the only country in the Big Four with a hard cap on international enrolment. The cap limit is designed to lower the number of temporary migrants as quickly as possible to appease a voting public that has been upset about skyrocketing numbers of new migrants amid affordable housing and health care shortages.
United Kingdom
Enrolments: The most recent enrolment data from HESA is for the 2023/24 academic year, when – for the first time in ten years – the total number of students enrolled in UK universities fell in compared with the previous year. The overall decline was only -1% but underlying it was a -7% decline in foreign enrolments. A total of 732,285 international students were enrolled in UK universities in 2023/24, compared with 758,855 in 2022/23.
However, the UK is picking up share of demand from other Big Four countries, especially the US. International students lodged a total of 76,400 visa applications in the first five months of 2025, representing a nearly 30% increase compared to the same period in 2024.
Relevant policies: The government withdrew the right of most international students to bring their dependants (aka family) with them in January 2024, causing applications to fall from some top origin countries. However, the quality of British institutions and the otherwise stable policy environment has kept overall demand strong in overseas markets.
The government has announced that in 2027, it will reduce the length of its popular post-study work programme, the Graduate Program, from 24 months to 18 months. This is predicted to cause a long-term reduction of approximately 12,000 student visa applications per year. The rationale is that too many graduates are not obtaining high-skilled employment through the Route.
Both the Dependants policy and the upcoming shortening of the Graduate Route are intended to narrow overseas applications to students (1) showing the greatest determination to study rather than work or immigrate, and (2) graduating with skills and knowledge that will quickly contribute to the UK economy. This, in turn, represents a targeted tightening of immigration settings.
United States
Enrolments: IIE’s 2025 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange shows that the number of international students in US colleges and universities (as well as Optional Practical Training) grew again in 2024/25 over the previous year. The total number was 1,177,766, up from 1,126,690 in 2023/24. This represents a record number, a +5% y-o-y increase, and an increase that follows on +7% growth the year before. Undergraduate enrolments were up, but graduate enrolments were down slightly (-3%), and commencements (new international students) were down -7%.
Meanwhile, the number of students in Optional Practical Training (OPT) – the work stream available to international graduates of US institutions – grew significantly, up +21% to 294,253 students (or roughly 25% of the total enrolment reported in Open Doors). Optional Practical Training participants are still counted among international student numbers in the US and that OPT programme growth accounts for most of the 5% total increase in international enrolments. It also reflects the large cohort of international students graduating from US universities last year.
Finally, the IIE’s Fall Snapshot Survey, in which over 825 US higher education institutions reported their international student enrolments for the 2025/26 academic year, found a -12% decline in graduate students and a -17% decline in overall commencements.
Relevant policies: The contrast between enrolments increasing (except at the graduate level) and commencements declining in 2024/25 is a reflection of the huge gap between the approaches of former President Biden and of current President Trump. Broadly, former President Biden adopted an internationalist position and was determined to restore global alliances, while Trump is a nationalist whose anti-immigrant stance appeals to a crucial segment of the American voting public (even as it repulses other voters).
In 2025, the Trump administration has battled elite universities in an attempt to control their operations and detained or deported international students for protesting against the war in Gaza. Deportations, cuts to research funding, and discussion about the potential removal of the popular Optional Practical Training (OPT) work experience programme are signalling to prospective international students – especially those from the Global South – that there are risks to choosing the US as a destination at this time.
How about Asia and Europe?
The recruitment environment is noticeably different in Asia and some countries in Europe:
- South Korea hit its target of 300,000 international students two years earlier than planned;
- Japan hosted more than 336,000 international students in 2024, growing 21% from the year before and closing in on its target of 400,000 by 2033;
- Taiwan wants to reach 320,000 by 2030;
- India is working to attract 500,000 foreign students by 2047;
- China has opened a new visa class to attract STEM students;
- Germany is enrolling more foreign students than ever, more than 400,000 in 2024/25 and has launched several policies to help retain them;
- France recorded a 17% increase in international enrolments in 2024/25 and has a goal of attracting half a million foreign students by 2027;
- Spain’s international enrolment is up 77% over the past decade and the government wants to welcome more – this summer it approved fast-track access to its universities for students who were rejected under Trump policies from studying in the US;
- Kazakhstan is aiming for 150,000 international students by 2029;
- Türkiye has plans to attract 500,000 by 2028.
As always, international student policies around the world offer a fascinating glimpse into the current – and future – world order and student movement across borders.
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