International students now make up 28% of Harvard’s total population, standing at 6,749 students, the largest proportion since 2002, according to figures released by the university earlier this month.
The international cohort increased by around 50 students compared with last year, a rise of less than 1%. The increase, though modest, stands out amid intensified scrutiny from the Trump administration and falling national enrolment trends.
Chinese enrolments rose 4.5% year on year to nearly 1,500 students, maintaining China’s position as Harvard’s largest source of international students. Numbers from South Korea also climbed sharply, rising by almost 9% from 2024. By contrast, enrolments from India fell by more than 30% to 545 students, diverging from broader U.S. trends that have recently seen India overtake China as the top sender of students nationwide.
Harvard’s growth contrasts with national figures showing a sharp decline in international student enrolment. The United States recorded a 17% drop in new international students, the steepest decline since the pandemic, for the 2025-2026 academic year, alongside a 1% decrease in total international enrolment, according to a report released last November by the Institute of International Education.
A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on the enrolment data, Bloomberg said.
The rise in Harvard’s international enrolments comes despite Trump’s aggressive clampdown on foreign students, which has seen more than 8,000 student visas revoked during the first year of his second presidential term.
Harvard has been at the center of Trump’s broader effort to overhaul higher education, initially focused on antisemitism concerns before expanding to target diversity initiatives and alleged political bias.
Last year, the Trump administration froze billions of dollars in research funding and barred the university from enrolling international students after Harvard refused to comply with government demands related to governance, admissions and hiring. Federal courts ruled in Harvard’s favour in two lawsuits challenging the funding freeze and visa restrictions, though the administration has since filed appeals.
Tensions escalated further in May 2025 when homeland security secretary Kristi Noem sought to block Harvard from enrolling international students, a move which Harvard said “was illegal and amounted to retaliation,” Reuters reported.
The Trump administration has also worked to curb international student enrolment more broadly. Last autumn, it offered certain universities preferential access to federal funding if they agreed to conditions including capping foreign students at 15% of undergraduate enrolment.
David Weeks, co-founder of international recruitment consultancy Sunrise International, said the rise in international students at Harvard marks a “meaningful signal for Harvard, and to a slightly lesser extent, for U.S. higher education”, noting that Chinese students of all levels were “generally willing to accept a cumbersome visa process to enrol in the best university that they’re admitted to.”
Speaking to The PIE News, he said “many Chinese families have lived through prior U.S.-China ‘lurch cycles’ like the 2018 trade war, so they evaluate shocks differently compared to markets like India.”
The enduring appeal of Harvard among Chinese students comes despite many of the administration’s restrictive policies and hostile rhetoric specifically targeting China, including secretary of state Rubio’s threat last year to “aggressively revoke” Chinese student visas.
Weeks said that despite current uncertainty, elite U.S. universities remain highly attractive, especially to Chinese students, because their reputations and the long-term value of their degrees are difficult to replace.
“Alternatives to the U.S. have limits, and quality thresholds are sticky. Australia, the U.K., Singapore, and Hong Kong can absorb some demand, but top-tier capacity is finite,” he said.
As a result, many students are unwilling to trade the academic prestige and networking advantages of leading U.S. institutions for only slightly more predictable visa conditions elsewhere, he said.