Trump’s Misguided War on International Students
By Brock Munsey
The New York Times reports that, “Between the federal government’s heightened vetting of student visas and President Trump’s travel ban, the number of international students newly enrolled in American universities seems certain to drop — by a lot.” (nytimes.com)
This hypothesis seems to already be proving true. The Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group, recently published a large survey of over 500 colleges and universities finding that 35 percent of the schools experienced a dip in applications from abroad last spring, the most since the pandemic.
These trends aren’t surprising considering the Trump administration’s attack on international students. According to the New York Times, “In one of its first moves, the Trump administration threatened to deport more than 1,800 international students studying in the United States. In many cases, the reasons were opaque.” (nytimes.com)
“The State Department has revoked more than 6,000 international student visas because of violations of US law and overstays, the department told the BBC. The agency said the "vast majority" of the violations were assault, driving under the influence (DUI), burglary and "support for terrorism." While the State Department did not specify what they meant by "support for terrorism," the Trump administration has targeted some students who have protested in support of Palestine, arguing they had expressed antisemitic behaviour.” (bbc.com)
The threat of deportation for any international student who dares to peacefully protest for their beliefs explains the hesitancy that these students are feeling toward studying in the U.S.
This is affecting international students who know the U.S. as the gold standard in postsecondary education, but it’s important to note that it is also affecting the United States significantly.
The Institute of International Education said there were over 1.1 million international students hosted in the U.S. during the 2023-2024 school year. They also announced that “international students at U.S. colleges and universities contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 academic year and supported more than 378,000 jobs.” (nasfa.org)
These are considerable contributions to the U.S. economy from international students. And, as reported by The World from PRX, “there’s this perception that international students are coming here and that we are paying as Americans, and we’re subsidizing them. But the fact is, it’s really the reverse — about 80% of international students pay their own way, whether from their own families or by borrowing money.” They even went as far as to say that after the Great Recession, colleges relied on high foreign enrollments, saying “declines in state dollars going to colleges were being made up for with foreign enrollments. Those tuition dollars are pretty important to keeping the lights on.” (theworld.org)
Not only are international students supporting our economy and diversity within our schools, but they are also quite literally supporting the schools—and communities where these schools call home—that Trump is trying to scare them away from.
image source: wikimedia commons