Overview

• A federal memo sent on October 3 proposes a voluntary compact limiting international undergraduates to 15% of total enrollment with no more than 5% from any single country.
• The draft was circulated to MIT, Penn, Arizona, Brown, Dartmouth, USC, the University of Texas, UVA, and Vanderbilt, and no institution has signed to date.
• MIT and Dartmouth leaders publicly criticized the approach as inconsistent with academic freedom and merit-based research funding, while UT said it is reviewing the compact.
• If accepted, universities would allow the Department of Justice to monitor compliance using admissions processes tied to I-20 visa data, raising enforcement and legal questions.
• Indian students, the largest international cohort in the U.S., could face tighter undergraduate access at any signatory campus, though the proposal does not touch graduate intake or OPT; separate data show August student-visa arrivals fell 19% year over year.