Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), North Korea's only Western-funded university, will start the fall semester without its dozens of American staffers after failing to secure exemptions to a U.S. travel ban that started on Friday.

PUST — home to the largest concentration of foreigners in the reclusive state — plans to revise courses and teaching schedules but its largely English-based curriculum will be heavily affected, two sources familiar with PUST's operations said.

PUST was founded in 2010 by a Korean-American evangelical Christian with the goal of helping North Korea's future elite learn the skills to modernize the isolated country and engage with the outside world.