Universities Hit Panic Button As Trump, Rubio Aim At Lucrative Income Stream

Nearly two years ago, I argued that the only way to reform Academia was to “decolonize” it — by ending all federal funding for universities and colleges. Sixty-plus years of federal subsidies and grants, especially in spiking demand through student loan programs, had transformed higher education into an indoctrination system that produced flabby-thinking activists rather than well-rounded thinkers. The fruits of this poisonous transformation sprang up on college campuses from coast to coast in anti-Semitic intimidation campaigns targeting Jewish students, faculty, and even local businesses. 

The Trump administration has chosen a different strategy, choosing to keep federal funding and other supports in place as leverage to pressure higher-ed institutions to reform themselves. That has some negative implications in the longer term, as future administrations can use those leverage points to return to a status quo ante. However, as the New York Times reported yesterday, the short-term impact may well be close to what my preferred strategy would produce.

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have taken aim at the fiscal jugular of Academia. And they are already panicking at the potential disaster ahead:

Many Iranians are not going to American universities this fall. Students from Afghanistan are having trouble getting to campus.

Even students from China and India, the top two senders of international students to the United States, have been flummoxed by a maze of new obstacles the Trump administration has set up to slow or deter people entering the country from abroad.

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.

The “heightened vetting” itself is long overdue. As these campus riots and assaults have demonstrated, bringing in foreign students with animus toward the US creates a dangerous environment for Americans on campuses. The US State Department should have been vetting applicants for demonstrated hostility to the US all along, especially in the era of social media. Our education system already produces enough native students who loathe the US, so why import more?

That’s more of a rhetorical question, of course. The impetus for importing students is very clear — it’s the money:

International students make up a significant portion of enrollment at elite universities like Columbia, but also at public institutions like Purdue. At Arizona State University, one of the ten universities that enroll the most international students, the number beginning their studies this fall — 14,600 in all — is down by about 500 from last fall, a spokesman said, mostly because of visa delays.

Many international students pay full tuition and are a revenue source that schools have come to rely on, including to help underwrite financial aid for other students. It’s part of the business model.

It’s not just part of the business model. It’s one of the main financial struts propping up colleges and universities. And it’s not just that these students pay full freight for their tuition, but also that their countries offer funding and other incentives for schools to accept them. There would be nothing wrong with that if those streams were friendly and supportive of the US and its traditions of constitutional government and liberty. However, the fact that the NYT recognizes that China is one of the main clients of this income stream — and Middle East regimes are not far behind — exposes a major reason why higher education has become so corrupt as well as so anti-American. 

We are not required to cooperate in undermining our own values and institutions, let alone keep them funded. If Academia is panicking, that indicates a step in the right direction. 

Editor’s note: Harvard is a special case here, too. Not only do foreign students make up over a quarter of the student body, Harvard allows them to intimidate and assault other students over their faith and ethnicity. They don’t just allow it, Harvard rewards it. Suspending their access to the SEVP seems more therapeutic than punitive in that light.

Harvard is exactly who thought they were. And Harvard is willing to fight to the last administrator to remain exactly who we think they are. So … let them. But don’t let them gaslight us any longer. Support independent platforms that call out these corrupt institutions and their funding mechanisms. Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.