Boasting palm trees, year-round desert heat and world-class research initiatives, the University of Arizona has been sought out by out-of-state, in-state and international students alike. However, the UA has witnessed a significant decrease in enrollment for the 2025-2026 school year due to a variety of factors. In 2024, UA said there were 56, 544 students, with 45, 025 being undergraduates and 11, 519 being graduate students. “Total enrollment is 54, 384, including 43, 294 undergraduates and 11, 090 graduate students,” the UA said in a statement this year. Each category experienced a noticeable decline. International students under the Trump Administration Universities across the country have faced a decrease in enrollment, largely due to the lack of international students coming to the United States under the Trump Administration. “Arizona International enrollment declined slightly to about 3, 309 students following a challenging year for students unable to obtain U. S. visas,” the UA said in this year’s fall census. President Donald Trump has issued multiple executive orders, such as Executive Order No. 14161 titled Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats. This order has significantly expanded the screening and vetting process that international students have to undergo to study in the US. Many students now struggle to obtain student visas, as the administration is delaying and reworking the interview process. Additionally, students have difficulty obtaining appointments at embassies and consulates. Following E. O. 14161, Trump issued a presidential proclamation restricting and limiting the entry of people from 12 countries and partially restricting the entry of people from seven more nations. Additionally, the administration is working to crack down on the duration of these visas, strictly limiting them to 4 years. This requires students to reapply for new visas in order to complete longer programs and comes with yet another wave of uncertainty. Along with the obstacles of simply obtaining a student visa, many international students are discouraged from coming to the United States with the growing risks of deportation even after arrival. This is in light of reports of many students and faculty across the country having their visas revoked for minor offenses. UA budgetary concerns International students and out-of-state students attending UA and other institutions often pay full or increased tuition. Therefore, this lack of international enrollment may contribute to increased budgetary issues for the UA and other universities across the country. It was recently announced that UA’s budget was officially balanced after experiencing a $177 million deficit in 2023. The process of balancing this budget significantly impacted the amount of merit-based aid that was offered to out-of-state students in this past admissions cycle. “Arizona residents make up 62. 5% of the first-year class, up from 52. 7% in 2024,” UA enrollment said in this year’s census. In 2023, UA’s financial action plan also outlined actions implemented in order to address the shortfall, one of these actions being to “rebalance undergraduate non-resident merit aid for new students and eliminate the tuition guarantee in fall 2025 for new students.” New admissions process “The first-year class includes 7, 506 students, returning to traditional enrollment levels after record cohorts between 2022 and 2024,” UA enrollment said this fall. The UA’s record-breaking class was made up of 9, 314 first-year students in 2024, with 52. 7% being in-state, 44% being out-of-state and 3. 3% being international students. The university reported it will not have a rolling admissions process for the upcoming 2025-2026 admissions cycle. This is the first year the university has not practiced rolling admissions and this could potentially impact the coming enrollment trends. UA’s new Early Action admission deadline encourages prospective students to apply before Nov. 1 to be considered for priority admission, merit-based scholarships and admission to W. A. Franke Honors College.
https://wildcat.arizona.edu/162941/news/why-is-ua-enrollment-down/