Lewis University, a 7,000‑student Catholic college near Chicago, has seen its international cohort tumble from 1,397 in fall 2024 to roughly 870 a year later, with projections under 500 for the current term. The drop follows the Trump administration’s aggressive visa curtailment, which slashed F‑1 approvals by about 36% year‑over‑year, upending enrollment models nationwide and forcing departments to cancel language‑intensive courses.

Facing a sudden $9 million revenue gap, Lewis trimmed roughly 10 % of its staff, including several faculty hired during a 604 % surge in overseas enrollment between 2016 and 2022. Provost Christopher Sindt warned that the contraction was far steeper than any previous visa fluctuation, leaving remaining students anxious about their status and prompting administrators to rewrite admissions playbooks and reshaping scholarship allocations.

President David Livingston, overseeing a $135 million endowment, stresses that international scholars once enriched curricula and covered full tuition, but the policy shift threatens the financial stability of midsize colleges reliant on foreign tuition dollars. With visa caps likely to persist, institutions like Lewis must either diversify revenue streams or accept a permanently leaner campus demographic in the near term.