In a matter of days, millions of students will be finalizing one of the biggest decisions of their lives: what college they will attend.

The choice could prove to be even more daunting for international students hoping to study in the United States, as the Trump administration revokes hundreds of student visas and admonishes colleges that don’t adhere to its policy demands, threatening to pull billions of dollars in funding and at least one school’s ability to host foreign students.

The previous academic year, more than 1.1 million international students enrolled at American higher education institutions – a record high, according to a report from the nonprofit Institute of International Education.

And foreign students, who are more likely to pay full tuition compared to their American counterparts, bring significant funding to colleges.

If they choose to take their dollars elsewhere, it could spell financial trouble for the US colleges that rely on them.

“A lot of universities are already under financial strain from a variety of reasons (including) the recent efforts by the Trump administration against certain elite institutions to claw back federal aid to those institutions,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University immigration law professor, told CNN. “So a drop in international students will hurt those institutions even more.”

While it’s too soon to know whether international student enrollment will decline this upcoming year – a clearer picture will emerge beyond May 1, college decision day – “it seems like a lot of students are more skittish about coming to the United States,” Yale-Loehr said.

Even before college decision day, one company that handles applications says it has seen a slight dip in international applications, and China, which supplies 25% of foreign students, has issued a warning to its citizens about studying in the US.

Foreign students are a significant source of revenue for American universities

More than 1,000 international students or recent graduates have had their visas revoked or statuses terminated since Trump took office in January – some high-profile cases accuse students of supporting terror organizations, while others have involved relatively minor offenses such as years-old misdemeanors.

A visa revocation would terminate a student’s legal status in the US, forcing them to step away from their studies – even though some students have already paid thousands in tuition dollars.

International students are more likely to pay full tuition at US colleges, in part because most aren’t eligible for federal financial aid.

Many universities also limit their own financial aid to domestic students, Yale-Loehr said, and “because of that, international students bring in more dollars per student than the tuition that domestic students pay.”

Some universities believe their commitments should lie with in-state and American students since their families pay taxes, said William Brustein, a higher education global strategist. He’s served as the chief international officer at several public universities and in top leadership positions for groups supporting international students.

“Now, for international students, (colleges) felt that they didn’t have that same commitment. And to be honest with you, they felt that this could serve as almost a cash cow for many of these universities. If these students were willing, their families were willing to pay two and sometimes three times as much,” he told CNN.

More than three-quarters of international students primarily fund their education themselves, through their family or through current employment, the Institute of International Education found. Less than one-fifth received primary funding from their US college or university.

And an increase in foreign students at public research universities led to pronounced tuition revenue gains, a research paper published in the American Economic Journal says – much-needed gains, the paper found, which helped offset falling state funding appropriations.

American universities are already seeing other types of financial pains: This week, the federal government froze more than $2 billion in multiyear grants and $60 million in multiyear contracts at Harvard after the Ivy League university refused to change its hiring and other practices.

And on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security threatened to strip Harvard of its ability to enroll foreigners if it doesn’t turn over records on “illegal and violent activities” of its current international students. International students make up more than a quarter of Harvard’s enrollment.

While Harvard and other elite schools could suffer financially from a decline in foreign students, others – like public research universities with endowments that aren’t as deep – could feel it even more keenly, Brustein said.

A top driver of international students to the US cautions its citizens

One-quarter of international students in the US hail from China, surpassed only by India, whose nationals account for 29% of international students.

But amid a massive trade war and what it calls the deterioration of “China-U.S. economic and trade relations and the security situation within the United States,” China issued a stark warning to its students hoping to study abroad in the US.

This month, China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and its Ministry of Education released statements telling Chinese citizens visiting and studying in the United States to travel with caution.

Jayson Ma, a 24-year-old Chinese national who has been in the United States since 2016 on a valid student visa, learned his student visa was revoked by the federal government earlier this month.

Ma said he learned about it when his school called with the news. But details about the reason for the revocation weren’t available; his attorney said he hadn’t received any official documentation ordering him to leave the United States. Ma has no criminal record or convictions; he has a previous DUI charge that was dismissed in court and expunged from his record after completing a court-ordered course, his attorney said.

In response to questions about Ma’s situation, a State Department spokesperson told CNN: “We don’t go into the rationale for what happens with individual visas.”

“The geopolitical environment over the last 10 to 15 years, particularly with respect to the US-China relationship, has really dampened the prospects for choosing the US,” Brustein said, with Covid-19 and its aftermath exacerbating the political climate.

In 2020, the US revoked visas for more than 1,000 Chinese students and researchers deemed security risks. When President Joe Biden took office, many of those Trump-era policies were kept in place – making it difficult for Chinese graduate students and researchers to secure a visa.

American schools saw a 4% drop in Chinese international students enrolled last academic year, according to the Institute of International Education.

Will the US see a drop in international students?

Wali Khan, a Michigan State University journalism student from Hong Kong and Singapore, came to the United States about four years ago in search of a freer press. He said he fled Singapore after he was interrogated for hours without access to a lawyer after his reporting on accusations of a top university mishandling sexual abuse cases.

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown hasn’t changed the 24-year-old’s plans – he wants to stay in the US after finishing school. And while it hasn’t stopped him from reporting, he said he’s received worried calls from friends, has considered privatizing his social media accounts and tries to spend more time in public and less in secluded places.

“I’ve built a life here,” he told CNN. “I’ve been uprooted once, and that was difficult enough. So it also feels like this crushing weight.”

Common App, a college admission platform serving hundreds of colleges and processing millions of applications, reported the number of first-year international applicants for the approaching school year was down 1% as of March 1 compared to the same date last year. That contrasts with a 5% rise in first-year domestic applicants – marking the first time since 2019 that growth in domestic applications exceeded international growth, the company said.

The recent treatment of foreign students could serve as “accelerants” for an eventual decline in international enrollment, Brustein said, stemming from concerns he’s been increasingly hearing from international families for years: The rising price tag of an American college education combined with increasing reputations of universities outside the US.

“The US isn’t the shining beacon on the hill here anymore,” he told CNN. “If you want to get a top-notch education that positions you well for your career, there are other choices now.”

Some signs point to even US citizens increasingly looking to Canada for their education: Reuters reported at least three Canadian universities had seen an uptick in interest and applications from American students. One official from the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus attributed the spike to the Trump administration’s visa revocations and increased scrutiny of their social media activity.

“This could become just not a trickle,” Brustein warned. “It could become, if we continue down the road we are today, maybe more of a flood.”

CNN’s Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the first name of Stephen Yale-Loehr.