President Donald Trump’s attacks on US universities have opened up a rare opportunity for European business schools to attract talent once bound for elite American campuses.
The continent is drawing students and faculty from around the world who are unsettled by political turbulence in the US and the Trump administration’s policies, deans say. Washington has cut research funding and tightened student and work visa rules, while proposing limits on diversity programmes and international enrolments.
A “Trump bump” has been felt from Barcelona to Berlin. Reasons vary but overall applications to European business schools excluding the UK rose 11 per cent this year, while those to US programmes slipped by 1 per cent, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). UK schools have seen a sharp slowdown in international enrolments after the British government introduced visa changes.
European business school deans say that among the increased numbers they are attracting more students deterred from study in the US, including from other European countries, America and China. High tuition fees and doubts around post-graduation work options have also weakened the appeal of the US.
The GMAC survey, conducted between June and August 2025, came before uncertainty around recent visa policy changes, which analysts say could weigh more heavily on US demand in the months ahead. The proposed $100,000 H-1B work visa fee initially caused alarm, but the US government later confirmed that it will not apply to international students already in the country switching from F-1 study visas.
Even before President Trump’s return to power, the prospect of a second term was enough to sway some prospective students. Luis Dominguez, a Mexican former consultant who had MBA offers in the US from Dartmouth College and Georgetown University, opted instead for HEC Paris last year.
“I would have hated to study in the US if Trump was president,” Dominguez says, pointing to visa uncertainty and the president’s barbs against universities, including Harvard. The president’s pushback against diversity programmes also hit home for Dominguez, who is part of the LGBT+ community and worked on diversity initiatives at his former employer, EY. “It feels scary to think of being in the US right now during this war against DEI,” he says.
For French schools, the influx has brought new pressures. “It was a very competitive environment in France [this year]. There was aggressive discounting and students shopping around,” says Mark Smith, dean of programmes at EMLyon Business School. The school’s intake levelled off this year at 1,500 masters students after an admissions season in which applications rose but conversion rates dipped, flattening growth.
To the south in Italy, Milan’s Polimi Graduate School of Management saw student numbers rise 20 per cent this year. “We are seeing a clear shift: Europeans are more interested in staying in Europe than before,” says Sergio Terzi, associate dean for international relations, linking the change to waning enthusiasm for US study options.
Europe’s business school origins go back to the 1800s, but the US has long defined modern business education, pioneering the MBA and case-study method. That hierarchy is now under strain. “The US was a lighthouse — but less and less,” Terzi adds.
The latest Business of Branding survey by education consultancy CarringtonCrisp shows the world’s largest economy slipping to third place among preferred study destinations, behind the UK and Germany.
“The US is expensive, that’s the issue,” says Andrew Crisp, the British consultancy’s owner. “You might in the past have said it’s affordable because I’ll get a good job in the States and the salaries help me repay that. If that is not possible, the maths changes.”
The cooling US job market has made it harder to secure high-paying roles, raising fresh questions about the investment case for an American MBA.
“Historically, the top seven US MBA programmes have been the most preferred options because of their career outcomes and the enduring appeal of the American dream,” says US-based admissions consultant Stacy Blackman, noting that European graduates earn less on average, even as top schools edge closer to US pay levels.
Fresh competition from other regions is also growing. According to GMAC, overseas applications rose 26 per cent in India this year, and 42 per cent across east and south-east Asia.
Among those looking beyond the US is Jackie Dong, a Chinese MBA student at Germany’s ESMT Berlin, who previously studied in Boston and Los Angeles. She was discouraged from returning to the US by the political climate and growing unease over the treatment of Chinese students. US secretary of state Marco Rubio has pledged to “aggressively” revoke Chinese student visas.
FT European Business Schools Ranking
This is an early article from the 2025 European Business Schools ranking and report publishing on December 1
“The US-China relationship has become increasingly tense,” Dong says. “The US is scrutinising international students more closely, because of their so-called political activity, or simply for being Chinese and seen as an outsider. They might even think you’re a spy.”
Some Americans are also looking at options outside the US. “We’ve observed a steady increase in US students opting to study in Europe, many citing the open, more international environment as a key factor,” says Marc Badia, deputy dean of Iese Business School in Barcelona. Iese’s MBA intake rose by a fifth to 421 students last year, a level the school has maintained, with 88 per cent of the class international.
Rising interest does not always translate into enrolments. Nalisha Patel, regional director for Europe at GMAC, says: “We see the increase in applications, but it will be interesting to see what that means in terms of bums on seats.”
Even so, the trend prompts the question of whether the centre of gravity in business education is starting to shift eastward from the US.
David Bach, president of IMD in Switzerland, says turning the recent surge in demand into lasting market share will require Europe to boost its economic competitiveness, a gap that has long persisted with the US. “If that happens, then indeed this could be a real structural [re]alignment in global management education,” he says.
Even so, Bach, who spent several years at Yale, says Europe’s progress rests on foundations laid by the US. “It’s actually an opportunity because European institutions and those elsewhere have become quite strong,” he says. “We’ve grown up.”