Texas A&M’s Real 12th Man: $100M+ Yearly From Foreign Students, Including China And India

Texas A&M University generates nearly $1 billion in tuition and fee revenue each year while educating thousands of international students, including those from adversarial or strategically competitive nations such as China, Iran, Russia, and India.

This information comes from an analysis of the university’s FY 2025 Executive Budget Summary and newly obtained public records from a Texas Public Information Act request filed by The Dallas Express.

A&M’s FY 2025 budget shows the university collects $981,724,000 in tuition and fee revenue, and its public records response confirms that foreign students constitute a significant revenue stream.

In 2024–2025 alone, international students generated $106.7 million in tuition and fees. For fall 2025, foreign students had already generated nearly $48 million, with spring numbers still pending.

The university’s Student Enrollment Distribution Map — current through October 21, 2025 — shows that Texas A&M has approximately 81,000 students, including several thousand foreign nationals from nearly every country in Europe and Asia. Around 70,000 students are reported to be Texans.

While A&M hosts some students from friendly or allied countries, it also educates significant numbers from hostile or high-risk nations, raising concerns about national security, research exposure, and the financial incentives that may push universities to overlook geopolitical realities.

Foreign Enrollment at Texas A&M (Fall 2025)

Valid Through October 21, 2025 | Categorized by Geopolitical Alignment

Note: Nearly every major nation has at least one student enrolled at TAMU. Most of the countries with no listed students appear to be located in sub-Saharan Africa.

A&M’s Dependence on Foreign Tuition

A&M’s public records officer informed The Dallas Express that its staff either do not directly track country-by-country scholarship data for foreign students or the school has not issued a scholarship to foreign students in the last two years. “No responsive documents” existed for financial aid aggregates or internal spreadsheets for international student funding.

But the data the university did provide is clear: foreign students bring in substantial money.

• 2024–2025 international tuition: $89.3 million
• 2024–2025 international fees: $17.4 million
• Total 2024–2025: $106,744,651.87

Student Cost (per academic year):

• $30,608 (In-state)
• $58,97 (Non-resident or International students)

*These costs include tuition and fees, housing and food, books, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses, according to A&M’s website.

This level of revenue aligns with national trends. President Trump recently told Fox News Anchor Laura Ingraham that American universities are deeply dependent on foreign tuition dollars — particularly from China — to keep their budgets afloat. “If we were to cut [Chinese enrollment] in half,” Trump said, “you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business.”

“So what,” Ingraham said.

“I think that is a big deal,” Trump responded.

The backlash from influential figures like Ingraham, however, reflects a growing belief that these foreign revenue streams entail unacceptable national-security trade-offs. In 2022, Zhengdong Cheng, a former chemical engineering professor at Texas A&M, pled guilty on two federal counts related to failing to disclose his connections to a Chinese government program that sought to steal American research to advance Chinese military initiatives, a news release from the university indicated.

Foreign Students as a Pipeline to Long-Term U.S. Residency

Bringing in foreign students is not merely a matter of classroom instruction. It opens the door to a multi-stage immigration pipeline that often ends in long-term residency or even citizenship.

A typical progression:

1. F-1 student visa
2. OPT (Optional Practical Training) — up to three years for STEM fields
3. Cap-Gap Extension, allowing continued legal status while awaiting H-1B status
4. H-1B visa
5. Employer-sponsored green card or additional extensions

A guide from Boundless Immigration notes that once a foreign student enters the OPT pipeline, the system is designed to allow a transition from student to long-term worker. With the new $100,000 H-1B employer fee reportedly in effect, the process has become even more politically contentious but remains a pathway for foreign graduates to remain in the U.S. for years or permanently.

This means that the cohort of foreign students entering campuses like Texas A&M is not simply attending school; many are beginning a legal pathway to long-term residency, while others may return to their home country with the knowledge they gained in Texas.

For students from strategic competitors like India and China, the system transitions them into the U.S. workforce at scale, often in sensitive research or STEM fields.

This comes with both pros and cons.

“[H-1B] workers spend and invest their wages in the U.S. economy, which increases consumer demand and creates new jobs,” the Massachusetts Immigration & Refugee Advocacy Coalition website states.

Yet, a recent Barclays report indicated that Indian H-1B workers send around $5 billion back to their home country each year, DX reported.

China and India Dominate A&M’s Foreign Population

Data confirms that Texas A&M’s international student body is highly concentrated in two countries:

• India: 1,645 students
• China: 952 students

Together, they account for nearly three-quarters of all foreign students at A&M.

India is formally a U.S. partner but also a rising geopolitical competitor, and its students make up the single largest foreign bloc on campus. China, meanwhile, is considered a strategic adversary, and Chinese nationals are subject to China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires them to “support, assist, and cooperate” with government intelligence operations abroad.

With nearly 1,150 students from China and Iran combined, it is unclear to what extent research universities like A&M remain exposed to espionage risks.

National Context

The federal government has already revoked over 8,000 foreign student visas during the current administration, per Fox News. It is unclear whether the administration will continue this policy or whether Texas A&M officials will increase or decrease their reliance on foreign students’ tuition.

Texas A&M University did not respond to requests for comment from The Dallas Express by publication time.