ORLANDO, Fla.—Burned out after more than a year of the Trump administration’s attacks on international students—as well as looming regulatory changes that will likely make it even more difficult for overseas students to study in the U.S.—international educators are yearning for clarity on what the future of international education in the U.S. might look like and how those policy shifts will impact the field.
Those concerns were top of mind for the thousands of international education professionals at the 2026 NAFSA conference, held last week at Orlando’s Orange County Conference Center. The impending end of duration of status, a long-standing rule that has allowed international students to stay in the country until they finish their program, was perhaps the biggest concern among attendees, hundreds of whom packed into multiple sessions about navigating the rule change. Another top concern was the potential end of or added restrictions to Optional Practical Training, which Trump administration officials have implied may be on the horizon, the impacts of the administration’s ongoing travel ban on international education, and more.
“A consistent theme throughout was policy issues, no doubt. People anxious about policy, about the ambiguousness of it all,” Anthony Ogden, founder and managing director of Gateway International Group, an international education firm, told Inside Higher Ed. “They were worried about what the implications might be for our profession and for them individually.”
