An annual report published by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday revealed that the South now boasts the highest percentage of foreign students, with an increase of 8.5 percent reported by the agency in 2024.
The 2024 Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) report, produced annually to track the number of foreign students and what they are studying at various institutions, revealed there were a total of 1,582,808 active students in the SEVP program last year, about a 5.3 percent increase from 2023.
Of these students, the SEVP report revealed 471,293 studied at universities in the South, constituted 28.9 percent of the total, meaning more foreign students are now enrolled in southern universities than in any other geographic region tracked by ICE. Foreign student enrollment in this region also grew by 8.5 percent in 2024.
Elsewhere in the country, the report showed that 28.3 percent of foreign students are enrolled in the Northeast, 23.3 percent enrolled in the West, and 19.3 percent enrolled in the Midwest.
While Tennessee was not mentioned in the report, ICE listed several top employers for foreign students which have a significant presence in Tennessee, including Amazon, Deloitte, and Tesla.
Prominent colleges and universities in Tennessee that participate in SEVP include the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, Middle Tennessee State University, Belmont University, and the University of Memphis.
According to the ICE report, California and New York attracted the most foreign students in 2024, with the agency tracking 237,763 and 172,522 in the states. Despite the widespread adoption of SEVP among Tennessee educations of higher learning, the Volunteer State did not rank in the top ten for foreign students.
The ICE report also offered details about the demographics of foreigners studying in America, revealing over 70 percent of foreign students hail from Asia, including about 420,000 from India and 330,000 from China. Computer Science and Second Language Learning were the top majors for foreign students in 2024.
ICE released the report just one day after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation restricting the ability for foreign nationals to attend Harvard University, citing rising crime at the institution, a rise in antisemitism, and multiple warnings by the FBI about foreign nationals abusing the American education system to gain access to the United States.
“We just don’t want students that are causing trouble. We want to have students. I want to have foreign students,” said Trump on Wednesday. “We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “University of Tennessee Campus” by University of Tennessee.
