These Are the US Art Schools Most Dependent on International Students

The Trump administration has recently threatened to block Harvard University from enrolling international students, and last week, the Department of Homeland Security said it had revoked a certification allowing Harvard to access a database known as SEVIS, for the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System to manage and track international students.

While the move was frozen within 24 hours by a judge, the president’s administration announced it would “aggressively” begin to revoke the visas of Chinese students, prompting some to ask about transferring to other institutions. Those same questions could also be asked by students at American art schools, which are likewise heavily dependent on international enrollees.

Many art schools and MFA-granting institutions in the US have even larger shares of international students than Harvard, with a significant percentage of their student bodies from China. According to recent statistics, international students make up 50 percent of the student body at School of the Visual Arts, 35 percent at the Parsons School of Design, 30 percent at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and 29 percent at both the School at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pratt Institute.

Those numbers have grown in the last two decades for two reasons: more people from countries like China and India sent students to study in the US, according to recent reports by CNN and NBC. Secondly, as public funding to many colleges and universities declined, international students often pay full price for their tuition and living expenses due to general ineligibility for US federal student aid.

For example, during the 2003–2004 academic year, Pratt Institute enrolled 700 international students. For the 2023–2024 academic year, that number grew to 2,406, almost twice as many as the School of Art Institute of Chicago.

The number of international students is even higher at the Savannah College of Art and Design, the School of Visual Arts, the ArtCenter College of Design, and the Academy of Art University, which are considered masters colleges and universities.

The most recent data from the Institute of International Education shows the vast majority of the 40,195 international students enrolled in US fine or applied arts programs during the same academic year came from China (42 percent), followed by South Korea (10.7 percent), India (10.7 percent) and Canada (5.2 percent).