International student enrollment slips under Trump. How is MSU Mankato moving forward?
How much of an economic impact do international students have on Minnesota?
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Enrollment for international college students is down nationwide in the wake of the Trump administration's changes — and threats of changes — to student visas, freedom of speech rights, and even attempts at blocking foreign students from studying at specific schools like Harvard.
So what's going on in the Minnesota State system? Will Coghill-Behrends, the dean of global education at Minnesota State University, Mankato joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition Thursday with his insights and how the school is easing international students’ paths to the North Star State.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the conversation by clicking the player button above.
What does international student enrollment at MSU Mankato look like this year?
Our numbers, as is the national trend, are down a little bit. This, of course, is due to the pause in visa issuance that was announced May 27, the travel bans that were announced in June and the challenges that we experienced last spring.
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International students can be moneymakers for public schools because they don't get the benefit of in-state tuition. Might this be a potential financial problem for MSU Mankato?
Yeah, absolutely, we're assessing the impact of our decline, not only at MSU, but across the state system. I will say, however, our team quickly pivoted this summer when we realized this was happening, and especially in terms of the pause in visa issuance. When that pause was lifted mid-July in most parts of the world, we quickly mobilized and developed a mid-semester start program. And so we effectively gave students coming to us an additional eight weeks to get visas. So we'll be starting a second crop of international students on our campus in the middle of October. That helps us sort of mitigate the impact of a 30-50 percent drop in international students studying in the U.S. this year.
Are you hearing that some of the students are having trouble getting or returning to Minnesota with these new restrictions?
We have not heard that necessarily. Those students who were already enrolled with us were advised to be thoughtful about whether they should travel home for the summer. Many of our students took that advice and chose to stay in Minnesota for the summer. So we developed an entire calendar of additional engagement activities to keep them occupied and remind them again of our continued support for them.
Of the students who have requested the mid-semester start program, we have had a few visa denials, but those are occurring in countries that we tend to have higher denial rates anyway, so it's not necessarily a surprise. But this continues to be a downward trend in what we see and believe to be a really positive thing for our communities, for our institutions.
You mentioned the economic impact on institutions. Let's not forget that international students in Minnesota, across the entire state, have an economic impact of nearly half a billion dollars, and in our Mankato region alone, close to $56 million, and that data is from NAFSA. The challenges we're facing really have an impact beyond just the university.
Do Mankato international students tend to stay in Minnesota after graduation, therefore boosting the local economy?
We do have a lot of students who are hired, not just in Minnesota but around the United States, and we have an excellent relationship with employers who actively seek and recruit our international students. And that's not just true at MSU; that's true across all of the system schools that work with international students.
So certainly, many choose to stay. Many are hired. Many have made careers and families here. I just spoke with a former international student who's living in the Twin Cities and has been here since the ‘80s, working and has a family now, and, you know, continuing to contribute and build community here in the state.
