Banishing foreign students will hurt America

The Trump administration's push to constrain the admission of foreign students to American universities is part of a scattershot effort to assert federal control over how private educational institutions conduct their operations.

The administration’s prime political target has been Harvard University. On Tuesday, new measures to slash research and other contracts with Harvard were reported on top of $2.65 billion in cuts already in motion. Another plank in President Donald Trump’s excessive squeeze on these institutions is his ill-considered drive to intimidate those enrolled in, applying for, or administering international study programs. Fortunately, on Thursday, a federal judge temporarily stopped the administration from terminating the legal status of thousands of international students — pending a court resolution.

But there is already a negative human impact. Some Harvard students and those just admitted, such as from Hong Kong, are reportedly weighing study and research in other countries. Similar fears are felt on other campuses. Politico reported Tuesday that the Trump administration has ordered U.S. embassies to stop scheduling visa interviews for foreign students as it mulls social media screening for all international applicants.

According to collegefactual.com, international students comprise 13% of Stony Brook University’s population — some 3,611 in all, about evenly divided between graduates and undergraduates, the site said. The countries with the largest on-campus communities are reported to be India, China and South Korea. At Hofstra University, 4% of the undergraduate student body and 14% of the graduate student body were reported to be from overseas. That’s a total of 672 students out of the total enrollment of more than 11,000. The possible chaos could threaten the schools’ revenues.

More significantly, the discouragement of international study costs the country dearly. The best and brightest from overseas have been drawn to America because of our excellent education and their desire to be part of our national ambition. They have not only contributed to a shared worldwide base of knowledge but to American enterprise. By one estimate, about 44% of startup companies valued at $1 billion had founders from Canada, India, Israel and elsewhere. Many came to the U.S. for school and stayed to build businesses. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, earned a bachelor’s degree in his native India before earning a master’s at Stanford University and an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

For all of the blustery rationale, destabilizing international programs is not even well-aimed at dissuading anti-Israel protests or hideous antisemitic intolerance on campuses, with which universities have lately been showing an effort to deal. Trump needs to call off his broad-based culture war against American educational institutions, starting with international admissions for the upcoming term. Destroying part of what has made America great won't make it great again.

Higher education does need to restore a spirit of free and balanced inquiry in the American tradition. Hostile White House orders won't help.