FAIRBORN, Ohio--President Donald Trump's tough talk and action about immigration are causing major headaches for Wright State University's international students, as well as the program itself.

Officials at the public university, in Greene County east of Dayton, say international student applications have plummeted by nearly half for the next school year compared to the previous year - a drop similar to what other schools around the nation are seeing.

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In addition, many current Wright State international students and recent graduates who hope to remain in Ohio say it's been extremely difficult to find a job in the area -- or anywhere in the United States -- since Trump took office, as potential employers are leery of the nation's changing immigration policies.

Roughly 1,300 international students study at Wright State, according to Michelle Streeter-Ferrari, director of the Center for International Education at Wright State. The top four countries Wright State draws from are India, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and China.

Fewer international students would have an economic impact both on Wright State and the area. International students, who are charged the full tuition price, pay almost 27 percent of the total tuition at Wright State, according to a report from SelfScore, a company that offers credit cards to international students.

Streeter-Ferrari said international students also create jobs in Greene County (where nearly 60 percent of voters backed Trump last November), as they have to buy food, pay rent, and spend money on other day-to-day things.

It's normal for international student applications to drop off when a new president takes office, Streeter-Ferrari said. And there are other reasons for the drop-off in international student applications, she said, including a currency crisis in India and changes to Saudi Arabia's scholarship program.

But, Streeter-Ferrari said, Trump's executive order in January temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim-majority nations came at the worst possible time - just as the admissions period for next year opened.

Courts overturned both that order and a similar subsequent order, which affected 53 Wright State international students from those seven countries. But Streeter-Ferrari said it led a lot of potential applicants to turn away.

"A lot of it is perception," she said. "They might perceive that a new leader might be able to put a ban on Muslims in this country, or the ability to wear a hijab for the women. They fear their visas might be revoked. They fear that if they leave the country, they won't be allowed to reenter."

Streeter-Ferrari said Trump could help applications bounce back by changing his rhetoric and policies to be more welcoming to legal international visitors here.

"What happens with our national policies will determine what happens next" with Wright State's international program, she said.

Many current Wright State students and recent graduates from abroad said they want to find a job in the United States, but it's become very difficult since Trump took office.

Sai Sri Lakshmi Borra, who is earning an MBA and a master's degree in electrical engineering, said she's been applying for summer internships since last October. At first, she said, a lot of recruiters called her about possible internships, but after Trump's inauguration in January, she's hardly received any calls back.

"At first, when I observed this, I was a little bit tense - 'ugh, how am I going to find a job? What am I going to do? How am I going to repay the loan that I took in India? And also, how am I able to gain the experience working in a different country and gaining some knowledge?'" Borra said.

But now, Borra said she's preparing to give up finding a job in the U.S. altogether.

"I might just go back to India and start up a business," she said.

However, Borra said she has no regrets about coming to study in America.

"Once I came to the United States, my ideas and way of thinking, everything changed. I met a lot of people from different countries," she said. "I would recommend that any international student can come here to, you know, gain skills, get knowledge in whatever field they want to. Because I believe this is a place of opportunities."

Raed Alshehri, a 26-year-old business major from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said he's had similar problems finding a job in the U.S. for after he graduates this fall. However, Alshehri has found a short-term solution: he's arranged to work at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C.

The embassy job won't be related to his career field, he said, but it will allow him to remain in America to look for business jobs.

Alshehri said that after Trump took office, his Muslim friend in Alabama had his car windows broken and found a sign on his door with a message that basically said, "Go home."

"I think in Ohio we are safe," he said, "but some [other] states, I don't think they are safe."

In the video at top, Nathan Balasubramanian, a 24-year-old graduate student at Wright State University from Coimbatore, India, talks about how changing immigration policies makes it more difficult for him to find a job here after graduation.



In the second video, Mukesh Varma, a 23-year-old Wright State University graduate student from Yanam, India, says President Donald Trump's talk about immigration makes him feel less safe.