Trump crackdown casts chill over international student programs
Colleges are increasingly worried about President Trump scaring away their international students.
More than a million foreign-born scholars attend U.S. universities every year, bringing billions of dollars to the economy and a pipeline of high-value workers.
But Trump’s crackdown on student demonstrators, coming alongside his attacks on higher education more broadly, could have them looking elsewhere.
“The Trump administration is purportedly trying to improve the economic and business climate for U.S.-based companies, and to grow American jobs and salaries. But the apprehension now felt by countless prospective international students and their families are undermining those very important goals,” said Eddie West, assistant vice president of international affairs at California State University, Fresno.
In the 2023-2024 academic year, there were approximately 1.1 million foreign students who contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy, according to data collected by the Association for International Educators, or NAFSA, and JB International. Those numbers represent both a record and the third straight year of growth after the COVID-19 pandemic.
NAFSA found that for every three international students, one U.S. job is created or supported.
And U.S.-educated foreign graduates have a terrific success rate: A study by the National Foundation for American Policy in 2018 found that one out of every four billion-dollar startups in America were created by former international students who studied here.
“It’s worth remembering that it’s not just colleges and universities whose finances will be impacted, but their local communities will be as well. Think restaurants, accommodation providers, inbound visits by international students’ family members and other so-called economic multipliers,” West said.
Those students, who often pay far more in tuition than domestic ones, can also help fill in gaps as overall enrollment declines — down 15 percent from 2010 to 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics
“Colleges and universities are already facing reduced enrollments due to the demographic cliff and diminishing public support for higher education in some parts of the U.S.,” said Ruth Johnston, vice president of consulting services at NACUBO.
The No. 1 exporter of students to the U.S. last year was India, which sent some 331,602, a 23 percent increase year-over-year and enough to seize the top spot from China.
And multiple Indian citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to detain and deport students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University, was arrested by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and told his visa was revoked.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” though she offered no further details of his activity.
Suri’s attorney, however, says he is being targeted due to the Palestinian heritage of his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, as well as his critical views of Israel.
The Trump administration is making use of an obscure law that allows the secretary of State to deport people he says pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy, and it has gone after students from countries also including Turkey, South Korea and Iran.
Mahmoud Khalil, the first and most famous of those detained under Trump for their pro-Palestinian activism, is a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and an Algerian citizen who was born in a Syrian refugee camp.
“The moment Mahmoud got arrested, it sent shockwaves across the Columbia community. He’s a green card holder,” Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian national and doctoral student at Columbia who fled to Canada before she could be deported, told Al Jazeera. “That’s when I realized I have no rights in this system at all. It was only a matter of time before they caught hold of me.”
Trump officials have argued the student demonstrations have been “pro-Hamas” and any noncitizen who disrupts U.S. universities does not have a right to stay in the country.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last week that more than 300 student visas have been revoked, saying, “We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa,” Rubio said.
And the immigration crackdown is just one part of Trump’s barrage against colleges and universities, which also includes trying to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, striking protections for transgender students and openly threatening the funding of schools that fail to comply, including big names such as Columbia, Harvard and Princeton.
All of those efforts could take some of the shine off America’s storied institutions of higher learning for global scholars choosing where to study.
“Concerns are now increasing about international student enrollment, in part due to uncertainty about research funding, as many graduate students come to the U.S. to gain research skills and experience. International students often pay a much higher rate of tuition than U.S. students, and this loss of enrollment would only make budgeting more difficult and concerning,” Johnston said.
Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA, said, “We cannot take for granted that international students are going to continue to come.”
“There’s a whole world out there, and there’s so many countries that see what international students can offer, and they’re actively recruiting international students and scholars, whether it’s Germany, whether it’s Japan, whether it’s Spain, whether it’s France, and the list goes on,” Aw said. “We cannot assume that the U.S. will continue to be that destination of choice, because parents want predictability. Students want predictability.”