The University of Washington enrolled 7,333 international students across its Seattle, Bothell and Tacoma campuses this year — about 7% fewer than last year. The drop comes even as UW's overall incoming class grew, a split that highlights how federal visa policy is reshaping who fills Washington's largest public university.
The Numbers Behind the Decline
According to the University of Washington News, 6,951 of those international students are enrolled at the Seattle campus, with 222 at Bothell and 160 at Tacoma. That Seattle figure matches what KUOW reported in its own coverage of the university's enrollment data, which framed the Seattle number as the lowest in at least a decade. KUOW also reported that UW Seattle's international enrollment has declined close to 7% for two years running, and has fallen more than 15% from its peak during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The university's own release tells a more complicated story about who's arriving at UW overall. International first-year and transfer students actually rose this year, with 1,077 enrolled across all three campuses — 99 more than in 2025. That increase happened inside a bigger wave: UW's total incoming first-year and transfer class across all three campuses hit 12,552, up 3.5% from the previous year, with Washington residents making up 75% of that group and nearly 40% identifying as first-generation college students.
A National Pattern, Not Just a UW Problem
UW's international enrollment dip fits a pattern researchers have tracked nationwide over the past two years, per KUOW's reporting. Other large public universities have reported similar or steeper losses this fall. Higher Ed Dive found that Ohio State's international population fell 12.7% to 5,234 students, while Indiana University's dropped 15.6% to 4,763. The University of Colorado lost 582 international students as part of a broader 1.4% enrollment decline, and the University of North Texas lost more than 1,300 international students, driving a 3.6% overall enrollment drop to 42,016.
The pullback traces back to visa policy at the federal level. Inside Higher Ed reported that new student visas issued nationally fell 23% in 2025 compared with 2024, citing figures attributed to the Department of State. F-1 visas, the most common category for international students, declined 33.4% that year, compared with drops of 9.9% for J-1 visas and 6.7% for M-1 visas. The outlet also reported that visa issuances to students from India fell 56.6% and issuances to students from China fell 28% between 2024 and 2025, with the broader slowdown beginning in May 2025 when the Trump administration paused visa interviews to roll out new social media screening.
Washington's Outsized Drop
Washington state recorded the nation's highest percentage decline in international students from 2025 to 2026, close to 16%, according to a Manifest Law analysis of Homeland Security data cited by KUOW. The Trump administration has targeted universities and international student programs more broadly, revoking visas and cutting federal research funding, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced plans in 2025 to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students specifically — a group that KUOW reported makes up the largest share of UW's international students, with students from India, Taiwan and South Korea rounding out the next-largest countries of origin.
UW Seattle's director of International Student Services described last year's decline as consistent with what schools nationwide were already seeing. “The numbers, and the slight decline, is definitely in line with what we're seeing in national trends,” the director told KNKX, which separately reported that UW had 7,893 international students across its three campuses in fall 2025. The Seattle Times reported that UW Seattle's 7,439 international students last fall marked the campus's fewest since fall 2017, down 7% year over year and nearly 10% from its 2022 peak.
Money, Diversity and the Stakes for UW
The financial stakes of the decline are significant, since international students typically pay about three times what Washington residents pay in tuition, with international graduate students paying roughly twice what in-state graduate students pay. UW international students face a cost of attendance of almost $61,000 for four quarters in the 2026-27 school year, while nonresident graduate tuition and fees run about $45,000 for the same period. KUOW's reporting noted that the enrollment decline carries consequences for both campus diversity and the university's budget.
UW President Robert J. Jones framed the growth in Washington resident enrollment as a point of pride even amid the international downturn, saying that Washington students choosing UW reinforces its commitment to statewide access to a world-class education. He added that students from across Washington bring diverse perspectives that enrich campus and foster collaboration. UW International Student Services notes that its own published statistics track degree students on the Seattle campus who enroll under F-1 or J-1 visas and exclude students who change visa status or become permanent residents, meaning its figures can differ slightly from the university's broader student database. Washington State University has not released current-year international enrollment figures for comparison, and the nationwide slide shows little sign of reversing: NAFSA, an association for international education professionals, has projected that the broader decline in international students this academic year will cost the U.S. economy $3.4 billion.
