Aadit Tambe, The Daily Iowan

Last month as I walked into Prairie Lights, I instinctively held the door open for an older woman I didn’t know. Beaming at me, she asked how my day was going, and what I studied. Following the brief interchange, I sat by the window, watching a stream of snow blow across Dubuque Street.

I sipped my warm double espresso and ruminated on the “Iowa nice” attitude at the center of the interaction — something I was foreign to growing up.

Originally from India, I am one of the 1,768 undergraduate international students enrolled at the University of Iowa. But when I first came here in 2016, this number was 2,478: in fact, the number of international students has been declining over the past five years

Fewer international students not only make our community less diverse but also affect an important funding source for colleges in the United States. A plunge in international-student enrollment translates to domestic students getting fewer chances to interact with people from different cultures

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