Seattle-area community colleges see fewer international students amid travel ban, visa restrictions

International students have brought needed revenue to colleges in recent years — especially community colleges where local enrollment has fallen. But getting permission to study in the U.S. has gotten harder under the Trump administration.

Seattle-area community colleges have been hit hard by the changes — and the fear they’ve caused.

Bellevue College enrolls more international students than any other community college statewide, with over 1,000 last year.

“It’s very difficult for international students right now," said Jean D’Arc Campbell, an associate vice president who leads the school’s international program.

Many students are having trouble getting visa appointments because they were put on pause for weeks this summer. The Trump administration has revoked about 6,000 student visas nationwide this year.

Campbell said that makes students — and their families — nervous.

“To go to study abroad is a choice that we have to make with the blessing of your parents," Campbell said. "And for many parents to read in the news and to hear what is happening in America is creating that sense of panic."

International students at community colleges can be more vulnerable to travel restrictions because the colleges often draw from different countries than four-year schools. While most international students at the University of Washington last year were from China and India, Congolese students were the largest group at Bellevue College.

In June, President Trump banned travel to the U.S. from a dozen countries his administration deemed security risks, including the Republic of Congo. Many Bellevue students are from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, which the State Department has listed as a country that might be added to the ban. That's also true for Kyrgyzstan, which last year was the school's third most common country of origin for international students.

Campbell said it’s hard to counsel students when immigration policies are so fluid.

"Every day there is something new," Campbell said. "Of course, the question is 'What is going to happen? Is my country the next target?’”

With the start of school at Bellevue College weeks away, new international student enrollment is down 56%. Other schools are also seeing big dips: At Shoreline Community College, international admissions are down 26% this fall.

Of the nation’s 20 community colleges with the largest international populations, a quarter are in the Seattle area — including Green River, Edmonds and Seattle Central.

Those schools enrolled twice as many international students last year as they did two decades ago.

Professor Nick Huntington-Klein says recruiting students from abroad has helped community colleges stay afloat. He teaches economics at Seattle University and has studied how students make college decisions.

Community colleges have had a tough decade, Huntington-Klein said, and local enrollment is down significantly. Demographic shifts have meant fewer people of college age, he says — and they now have more choices.

“There's more for-profits, there's more other people going into non-college approaches, there's more four year colleges that are being less selective," Huntington-Klein said. "So there's definitely some real structural pressures on community colleges to find those students, and introducing more international students has been one of the fixes."

International students pay higher tuition than in-state students, and enrollment rates also determine state funding. Huntington-Klein says community colleges are particularly vulnerable to swings in enrollment because they don’t receive the same research funding as four-year schools.

“Adding international students has turned out to be a risk that was not foreseen as a risk," Huntington-Klein said. "If you go back even to the first Trump administration, there was not a major fear that international students were just going to start getting turned away, whereas that is much more of a fear now.”

At Bellevue College, Jean D'Arc Campbell said that the school is working both with international students who are still trying to get to campus this fall, and those who are already in the country, but are worried about what’s to come. He knows that sense of unease — he’s Congolese, and was a refugee before he came to the U.S.

“It is not easy, but you know, we are still hoping for the best," Campbell said. "I was an international student. I believe in that spirit of America that sometimes help people overcome their challenges."

As with other colleges, Bellevue won’t know for sure how federal pressure has affected who comes to school this fall until classes begin later this month.