In his latest salvo against Harvard University, President Donald Trump has threatened to block international students from enrolling in the university. If such a threat were fulfilled, it would transform the institution — about a quarter of the university’s student body is foreign. And if Trump tries to replicate this tactic with other schools across the country, he will likely rob American universities of their status as global beacons of intellectual production and incubators of the world’s premier talent.
Trump’s threat escalates a showdown that began when the White House sent Harvard a letter with a list of extraordinary demands that would have, among other things, transformed the university’s hiring and admissions policies, disbanded pro-Palestinian student organizations on campus, and instituted sweeping audits of the ideological viewpoints of the student body and faculty. Fortunately Harvard said no. The university’s president, Alan Garber, called the demands “an attempt to control the Harvard community” and vowed that the university would “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
If Trump attempts to replicate this strategy at other universities and they lose the ability to enroll international students, it could be a wrecking ball in academia.
The Trump administration responded by immediately freezing over $2 billion in grants and contracts. But that hasn’t been enough. Now the administration is trying to find new avenues through which to squeeze Harvard — and make an example of it. Trump has threatened to hit the school financially again by revoking its tax-exempt status. Such a move would inevitably face legal challenges, since, as The New York Times reports, “Federal law bars the president from either directly or indirectly requesting the I.R.S. to investigate or audit specific targets.”
In the meantime, the administration is saying it won’t let the school enroll foreign students unless it hands over “detailed records” on foreign student visa holders’ “illegal and violent activities” by April 30. Once again, the White House alleges the university failed to crack down on antisemitism, despite its extensive and censorship-inducing efforts to do so.
The financial impact for Harvard, should the White House follow through, is uncertain but likely significant. International students are often an important source of tuition dollars for universities, since they aren’t eligible for federal or state financial aid. Though Harvard offers some international students unusually generous aid packages out of its own wallet and it generally has a vast pot of resources, international students make up a quarter of the student body. It’s hard to imagine losing the revenue would be a welcome development — especially when the university is already losing funds from Trump’s previous penalty.
More fundamentally, losing the ability to enroll international students would certainly fundamentally alter Harvard’s status as a home for global talent. Losing access to foreign students would reshape the student body. It would deprive the university of many of its most valuable students and researchers who might become potential employees and influential alumni and donors. And it would be a loss for the school’s American students, whose education, social experience and professional networks are enhanced by students from around the world.
Worse still, if Trump attempts to replicate this strategy at other universities and they lose the ability to enroll international students, it could be a wrecking ball in academia, both at the financial and academic level. Last year, more than 1.1 million foreign students enrolled in American higher education institutions, a record high. That’s a lot of money for schools on the line. It’s a boon to American student life to have such vast multicultural offerings. It’s an extraordinarily lucrative export for the U.S. economy. And it’s a huge asset to the U.S. economy to have a lot of those students seek out jobs in, and develop ties to, the U.S.
Notably, Trump’s latest demands could damage the United States’ appeal to students abroad regardless of how Harvard or any other similarly targeted schools respond. The Trump administration is making it clear that it views international students not as assets to the nation, but as political bargaining chips who lack constitutionally protected rights. It has already revoked many student visas on political grounds and placed students in dehumanizing deportation facilities. Just as Trump’s aggressive treatment of travelers and migrants at the border appears to be driving down tourism to the U.S., it seems likely that with the constant stream of controversy, some foreign students might hesitate to pursue higher education in the U.S. compared to other Western countries with high-quality higher education institutions. Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University immigration law professor, told CNN that already “it seems like a lot of students are more skittish about coming to the United States.” This possibility seems only likely to grow as Trump takes extraordinary measures to target China with aggressive tariffs and intensifying rhetoric accusing the country of manufacturing the Covid-19 virus in a lab. Chinese students make up 25% of international students in the U.S., but the Chinese government has already warned students about studying in the country. Trump’s war on academia and attempt to create a docile higher education system is authoritarianism 101. In the process, he seems willing to torch a key source of what makes American academia great.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. 
