Two of Ohio’s largest research universities are no longer touting their enrollment figures for international students as they did just months ago.
The changes jump out as universities in the Buckeye state and nationwide share the latest numbers online as the fall 2025 semester gets underway.
For years, Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University included an annual breakdown of the states, counties in Ohio, and countries its students hailed from in an interactive map. Now, the university is only sharing this fall’s enrollment numbers at a state-by-state and Ohio county level, though a previous iteration remains online.
Case Western Reserve officials told Signal they “decided not to include the country-level data” on that page this fall, but declined to further comment as to why.
And though the University of Cincinnati hasn’t yet updated its enrollment page with numbers for this fall, officials have made changes to that site.
Internet archives show a “Student Diversity and Internationalization” chart appeared among the university’s other enrollment data as recently as January 2025. That chart is now gone, though the university still displays what percentage of its population is international students – nearly 9% of the 53,235 enrolled last fall.
Cincinnati officials said its enrollment page will be refreshed “soon” with new numbers. They declined to say if they will include that international student chart in the update, adding that the page’s “presentation typically changes every year.” Internet archives show the university posted a version of that chart annually on that page for at least the past four years.
International students have been a focal point of the federal government since President Donald Trump began his second term in January. About 2,000 people legally studying in America – including several dozen in Ohio – had their student visas revoked this spring before the majority were eventually reinstated.
This week, national news outlets reported the Trump administration asked some colleges to cap undergraduate international student enrollment at 15%, among other moves, in exchange to potentially get better access to federal funding.
Cincinnati, Case Western Reserve enroll thousands of international students
Both schools have traditionally had some of the largest populations of international students in Ohio. Case Western Reserve enrolled 2,630 students last year, while Cincinnati enrolled 6,276 students, according to one national report. Ohio State, Kent State, and Cleveland State universities make up the state’s other top leading destinations for international students.
James Murphy, director of post-secondary policy at the national advocacy group Education Reform Now, said it “certainly seems likely” that a university’s leadership team may intentionally be making these changes given the current political climate.
“It is hard for me not to imagine legal counsel advising the administration, and then the admissions office or the enrollment management office, to be cautious about calling attention to international enrollment,” he said.
Colleges might want to protect their international students from extra scrutiny by not sharing a country-by-country breakdown of where they’re from, he said.
Yet he hesitates to identify the changes Case Western Reserve and Cincinnati are making as part of a broader trend or pattern of colleges potentially hiding international student data.
These are just two schools out of thousands nationwide, he said. Plus, it’s still relatively early in the fall semester, meaning some institutions might not have yet updated public-facing enrollment websites.
Why public college enrollment data matters
Colleges and universities have to provide all kinds of enrollment and admissions data to the state and federal governments, but no law requires them to share this information on their own websites.
Yet many traditionally have done just that. Murphy said it can be “a point of pride” as well as a marketing tactic for a university to show the diversity of its student body.
Still, Murphy said this data can seem “kind of esoteric” to those outside of the higher education world. He’s been keeping close tabs on how institutions nationwide report demographic information after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled colleges couldn’t use race as a factor in admissions in 2023.
But colleges and universities play big roles in their local communities. Without institutions sharing accurate and transparent figures, it can make it harder for Ohioans to discern who those places are serving, as well as how those same colleges may be faring economically.
Plus, Murphy pointed out this information can help influence advocacy and policy making.
“If you don’t have public data that all people can access, you’re essentially giving universities a license to do whatever they want,” he said. “You can’t make good policy, you can’t identify problems that need solving, [and] you also can’t identify good actors.”