The flow of new international students entering U.S. colleges and universities shrank last year and has continued to decline this fall on many campuses, breaking a recent trend of growth, a nonprofit group said Monday. The data from the Institute of International Education are likely to fuel questions about how the divisive 2016 presidential campaign and U.S. policy shifts since President Trump took office have influenced the global academic market.

Last October, the Institute of International Education led a delegation of college and university officials from the United States on a cultural immersion trip to Cuba, the first of what officials hoped would be many following the return of diplomatic relations with the country. Since then, thousands of students and dozens of officials from U.S. institutions have traveled to the island in the expanded version of cultural exchange agreements between the two nations. 

When students from different cultures come together in an academic setting, it fuels an intellectual exchange that sparks innovation, said Allan E. Goodman, president and chief executive officer of the Institute of International Education (IIE), in a press release. Goodman's statement coincided with the release of the IIE's 2012 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.