In a growing era for graduate school, the ones taking most advantage of it aren’t Americans, but international students.

International students are outnumbered at the undergraduate level, but at the graduate level, particularly in STEM fields, they’re the majority. In the fall of 2015, 55 percent of STEM graduate students nationwide were foreign, while in business they were 18 percent and in arts and humanities, they were 16 percent. In computer science, foreign undergraduate students make up nine percent of the student population, whereas 64 percent of doctoral candidates and 68 percent of master’s students are international.

Many American students simply don’t see the value in graduate school, especially when they can get just as good of a job with less student debt. Graduate programs also benefit from the high international demand as it brings in more tuition dollars to the school.

With the current political climate surrounding immigration, however, international applications have dropped dramatically – by nearly 30 percent at some colleges. If that becomes a trend, colleges have reason for concern, and so do recruiters for major STEM companies like Google and Microsoft that hire graduate level students.

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here.