IIT is the canary in the coalmine (Do our younger readers know what that means? Do we have younger readers?)

Lance has posted about his, and around 160 others, being laid off from IIT here.Hence I looked into what is happening at IIT to see if there is a lesson for us all.I) I wondered why IIT had declining enrollment. I wondered which of the two was the issue (and of course there are other reasons). --The enrollment cliff--International students have declined in number. Why? (1) Having getting student visas, (2) They think they are not welcome here (3) Schools in their home country getting better. Note that I am just guessing.Rather than speculate I asked ChatGPT for the data on both enrollment and on international enrollment from 2015 to 2025. Here is the data: here.a) 2015 had an enrollment of 7792. It went down in 2020 (COVID?) but then came up again and it was 8838 in 2024. In all the years for which there is data international students were about half of the students.b) 2024: 8838 students, of which 4596-International (52%), 4242-Americans 2025: 7502 students, of which…