New foreign undergraduate enrollment at U.S. colleges fell an average of 20% this spring from a year earlier, and graduate enrollment 24%, according to a survey of 149 institutions led by NAFSA and reported by Bloomberg.
There were 4,258 Singaporean students in the U.S. as of September 2025, and the August decline of 4.8% was the smallest among Asian countries and territories, Channel News Asia reported. The U.K. remains the larger destination, with 7,110 Singaporean students in the most recent Higher Education Statistics Agency data.
New Ke Yue, a 19-year-old from Singapore, will start at the University of Chicago this September on a full scholarship, two weeks after a U.S. visa overhaul is set to take effect that will cap her stay at four years.
She is going anyway, and two Singapore admissions consultancies told The Straits Times that nearly all of their U.S.-bound students are doing the same.
Joash Lee, chief executive and founder of admissions consultancy Sedifly, told The Straits Times that all the students his firm is guiding to U.S. colleges are staying the course.
