Massachusetts has long attracted people from around the world, and we’ve been especially welcoming to young people coming to study in our colleges and universities. But changing conditions have made the nation—and, by extension, the Commonwealth—less hospitable to students from abroad. The second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown now reaches well beyond the undocumented, targeting students, researchers, and scholars who are here on perfectly valid visas. Deportations, detentions, and visa revocations that once felt exceptional have become common.

Because these actions are being taken unilaterally by the executive branch—without a public legislative process or even due judicial process—we don’t know the precise motivations behind such dramatic moves. But based on patterns to date, the hostile environment appears driven by a mix of anti-immigrant sentiment, a desire to suppress free speech (particularly pro-Palestinian activism), and an effort to assert control over higher education institutions viewed as ideologically opposed to the current administration.

These actions harm the targeted students most directly, but their ripple effects spread far and wide. International students aren’t merely passing through; many lay down roots during their studies and after graduation, contributing to the region’s art ecosystem, starting local businesses, caring for patients, and powering the biotech, robotics, and clean-energy firms that keep Massachusetts at the forefront of innovation. Cutting off that talent pipeline jeopardizes both local businesses and the state’s standing as a scientific powerhouse. As was documented in a recent Vox article, the double punch of tightened visa policies and looming federal cuts to basic research threatens to sap America’s edge in discovery and innovation.

The stakes are both moral and economic. One of the most troubling examples of efforts to intimidate and silence international students occurred right in our backyard, with the abrupt detention of Tufts Ph.D. candidate Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish visa-holder. The legal and ethical fallout is explored helpfully in a recent town-hall episode of the podcast Question Everything with Brian Reed. International students like Öztürk are our neighbors, classmates, and colleagues; they deserve due process and full freedom to study, speak, and contribute to our communities.

So, what exactly is at stake for our region if significant numbers of international students are turned away—or turned off? We dug into the numbers to get a sense of who our international students are, where they come from, and how much they contribute to colleges and universities in Massachusetts, as well as to the broader economy.

This research brief relies heavily on the Open Doors report, an annual census of nearly all degree-granting institutions in the United States that asks how many students are on F (student) and J (exchange visitor) visas, as well as those who extend their stay in the U.S. for Optional Practical Training (work authorization for field of study). Administered by the Institute of International Education and funded by the U.S. government, this dataset tracks—among other things—international students by state and institution.

With more than 82,000 enrolled international students, Massachusetts has the fourth largest international student body in the country by state, and the largest overall as a proportion of postsecondary enrollment, at 17.6 percent. This is more than 5 percentage points greater than the next highest share (New York), and more than double the rate nationwide. 

Interestingly, enrollment in just one school—Northeastern—accounts for roughly a quarter of the state’s international student body. With several international campuses and a global recruitment effort, it is the second most popular destination for international students in the United States after New York University.

Northeastern is an outlier, yet its international recruitment illustrates a trend that has reshaped campuses nationwide. Public universities began courting students from abroad during the Great Recession, when shrinking state appropriations made higher-priced out-of-state tuition indispensable. Today the strategy continues as a response to lower U.S. birth rates, rising college costs, and shifting attitudes that have thinned the pipeline of college-bound Americans. Private colleges are dealing with the same forces, though they do not explicitly charge out-of-state students more.

Regardless of whether they attend public or private institutions, roughly 81 percent of international undergraduates pay their way primarily with family funds. At the graduate level, that falls to about 62 percent. For universities that otherwise might be expected to offer financial incentives, stipends, or other support from their own budgets, students who can pay full price are an attractive way of making ends meet. Indeed, a recent Boston University study suggests that if international enrollment falls because of Trump administration actions, Massachusetts’ leading public and private campuses could face budget gaps reaching tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars by 2026.

Student headcounts and tuition dollars tell only part of the story; it’s also instructive to look at who these students are and what they’re studying. For that, we turn to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which tracks every visa-holding student by country of origin, campus, and degree level. SEVIS lets us slice the data at the state level in ways the Open Doors report does not, revealing not just how many students are here, but also which field of study they’re pursuing.

Roughly mirroring national trends, SEVIS data show that China and India supply the largest shares of international students, with Chinese students alone making up around 30 percent of the foreign-born population at every degree level. What stands out, though, is the tilt toward graduate study. Nearly half of all international students in the Commonwealth are enrolled in master’s programs, a rate about 14 percentage points higher than for bachelor’s degrees. 

International students who live, study, and work in the United States clearly contribute to the overall economy. And because this population is especially large in Massachusetts, our state economy benefits uniquely from their contributions. One resource available via NAFSA: Association of International Educators—uses Open Doors data to estimate that these students added $3.9 billion to our state economy in 2023. These contributions come in the form of tuition, housing, and other living expenses (less any support such as grants, stipends or sponsorship they may find stateside).

Dividing the total economic benefits by the size of different state populations, this translates to about $547 per resident for Massachusetts. Aside from D.C., that’s the largest per resident benefit of any state and more than four times greater than national levels. Furthermore, these estimates look just at immediate impacts of currently enrolled international students, leaving out any further contributions people make if they stay in Massachusetts after graduation to help develop the next generation of robots for Boston Dynamics or vaccines for Moderna.

Despite the overwhelming positive long-term benefits of welcoming global talent, the new federal administration has already put foreign students on notice. Early visa withdrawals and processing delays—often unexplained and sudden—signal that the rules can change overnight. And because we are only a few months into this presidency, it’s impossible to know how many prospective scholars will decide it’s safer to study in places like Toronto, London, or Melbourne instead.

What we do know is that capricious policies make long-term planning harder for students and for the colleges that rely on them. If the current tone persists, the Commonwealth risks losing far more than tuition revenue. We could hollow out the next generation of researchers, entrepreneurs, and neighbors who study in our classrooms, enrich our local culture, and contribute to our economy. In a state whose prosperity has been built with an open door to the world’s brightest minds, that’s a price we can’t afford.