America is simply starting to tally the price of our catastrophic, self-inflicted wound. Throughout Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0, by assaulting immigration and world engagement, we’ve additionally banned and discouraged the globe’s most gifted college students from being educated right here, hurting ourselves and our financial system. After inexperienced shoots of restoration underneath Joe Biden, the information reveal the profound value we’re paying.
America’s financial engine of worldwide schooling is highly effective. In line with information from NAFSA: Affiliation of Worldwide Educators, for the 2022-2023 educational yr, the newest out there, worldwide college students contributed greater than $40 billion to the U.S. financial system and supported greater than 368,000 jobs. Floor zero for this struggle on expertise is California. In the Golden State alone, this meant over $6 billion in financial exercise. These gifted worldwide college students, usually paying full-freight tuition, preserve our magnificent College of California and Cal State techniques reasonably priced for in-state college students. It’s the hire paid to native landlords, the cash spent in our small companies, and the funding that fuels our superior analysis labs.
That is the asset Trump sabotaged. The hostile message—transmitted by way of visa slowdowns, threats to eradicate the Optionally available Sensible Coaching (OPT) program that enables college students to work post-graduation, and rampant xenophobia—is heard globally. New worldwide scholar enrollment plummeted by a devastating 43 p.c on the finish of the primary Trump administration. Whereas a lot of that was amplified by the pandemic, the anti-immigrant insurance policies previous COVID-19 had already triggered a big decline. Initially of Trump 2.0, numbers are once more down 17 p.c nationwide.
We can’t naively imagine this may rebound when the Trump period lastly ends. Whereas enrollment recovered considerably in the course of the Biden administration, our world rivals—Canada, the UK, and Australia—used our insularity to recruit the world’s finest. Worse, China’s universities have surged in world rankings, with Tsinghua and Peking now firmly within the prime tier. We instructed the world’s brightest they weren’t welcome, and so they went elsewhere. The goodwill we squandered is not going to be shortly restored.
I witnessed the strategic chapter of this strategy firsthand throughout my Barack Obama-appointed service on the manager committee of the J. William Fulbright Overseas Scholarship Board. For practically 80 years, the Fulbright program has been the gold normal of public diplomacy. Its genius lies in its leverage. The U.S. authorities’s annual funding of roughly $275 million is augmented by greater than $110 million in direct cost-sharing from companion governments and host establishments. By figuring out future abroad leaders and immersing them in American society, it’s a strategic discount of epic proportions.
Underneath the Trump administration, I watched this program, which enhanced American energy, be undone primarily by those that claimed to be America First. They lower its funds and politicized a bipartisan endeavor. This disaster culminated in mid-2025 with the mass resignation of presidentially appointed board members, who stop after the White Home tried to put in an government director, a purely political operative with zero expertise in educational alternate. It was a brazen, cynical transfer to show a revered establishment right into a hive of cronyism. Workforce MAGA failed to understand that the Fulbright alumni who’ve change into presidents and prime ministers are an asset extra invaluable than any weapon system—a present they discard for reasonable political acquire. (For what it’s price, I used to be changed in 2019 by Sarah Huckabee Sanders.)
This isn’t to say that our internet hosting of worldwide college students was good. Reliable issues round visa overstays and mental property theft demanded consideration. State-sponsored espionage and mental property theft by way of educational channels represent a severe nationwide safety problem that requires a sturdy response. However this focused risk doesn’t benefit struggle on the worldwide expertise pool. A practical and efficient technique makes use of a scalpel, not a cleaver.
The Trump administration, nevertheless, denies America the advantages of tens of hundreds of legit students to cease the few we should always deny entry. It’s a catastrophic failure of governance.
So, what have to be carried out?
First, states, together with universities, should market themselves as a world haven for expertise. Congress should discover its backbone and move laws to shield and reform applications like OPT, offering a path for the world’s finest to review, keep, and contribute to our financial system.
Second, we should restore and insulate our devices of sensible energy. This implies robustly funding and, crucially, depoliticizing the Fulbright program and academic exchanges. Firewalls can shield these nationwide safety belongings from partisan politics. Future presidents should not solely welcome the world’s college students but additionally champion establishments that make that welcome significant.
The info are plain. We’re abdicating our management in world schooling. We misplaced billions of {dollars} and a strategic benefit. Now we have a alternative: we are able to reclaim our nationwide confidence, or we are able to let China, Europe, and others win the worldwide expertise race. The way forward for American innovation is at stake.
