“We’re going to have a trend that we want to communicate more with the government on,” said Casey. “I think some of the things we’re going to be asking for are additional resources for the consulates and others doing the new procedures, in order to be able to do it in a timely fashion.”

Casey added that the committee will also work to procure additional transparency in getting visas, which will facilitate the process for international students.

Getting or renewing a visa is not the only impediment in the path of foreign students, however, according to Syverson.

“The word seems to be on the street that it is more difficult to be an international student in the U.S. than it used to be,” Syverson said. “The sense is that we’re more restrictive, we’re less welcoming, there’s more hassle and there are other places to go.”

This is especially disturbing, he added, because there is no simple way to combat such sentiments.

Syverson ascribed part of the national decline to decreased funding for state universities, which has resulted in poorly staffed international offices and less attention to recruiting students from overseas.

Ladd also pointed to the increased competition from schools in other parts of the world as a partial explanation.

“Our counterparts in Canada, Australia and the U.K. are all trying very hard to recruit international students and are very successful at it,” Ladd said.

Dean of GSAS Peter T. Ellison said that whether the drop proves to be a one-time occurrence or part of a long-term trend, it is a negative development.

“The phenomenon itself is troubling, as are its possible causes,” Ellison wrote in an e-mail. “At a time when Harvard is broadening the scope of its educational and research missions to a global scale, we must certainly worry about policies that may discourage qualified students from applying.”

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.