The Trump administration’s international student crackdown is triggering a measurable enrollment decline that could ripple through university budgets and the US STEM labor pipeline, a new analysis says. NAFSA reported international enrollment dipped 17% last fall, while lost tuition spending translated to $1.1 billion in university revenue and nearly 23,000 fewer jobs. A Peterson Institute for International Economics paper extends the risk further, warning that if transplant STEM graduates trained in the US fall by a third over the next decade, the long-run GDP hit could range from $240 billion to $481 billion. The analysis frames international STEM recruitment as a core US economic advantage. The policy mix cited includes more restrictive anti-immigration measures that target foreign-born students and tighter rules on post-schooling employment for international graduates.