A recent investigative report from the South China Morning Post has brought international attention to a growing crisis in American higher education—one that many U.S. colleges and universities have been reluctant to confront publicly. Amid a second Trump administration and an escalating crackdown on immigration, thousands of Asian students are rethinking or abandoning their long-held dreams of a U.S. education.
For decades, the promise of an American degree symbolized more than academic excellence. It represented freedom, opportunity, and a foothold into a more prosperous life. That promise is now being eroded—not because of tuition hikes or student debt, but due to political hostility, administrative unpredictability, and nativist policies that treat international students more as geopolitical pawns than valued contributors.
As reported by Kimberly Lim, Nicole Cheah, Biman Mukherji, and Hadi Azmi for the SCMP, students from countries like Myanmar, China, Singapore, and Malaysia are finding themselves in an increasingly precarious position. Student visa interviews are being suspended. University programs, including those at Harvard, have had their certification revoked and later reinstated only under pressure. Students are being warned that travel abroad could mean forfeiting their education permanently.
The Trump administration’s targeting of Chinese nationals—who comprise nearly a quarter of all international students in the U.S.—is part of a broader xenophobic wave. From digital surveillance of visa applicants’ social media accounts to travel bans that now include nations like Myanmar, the message is unmistakable: “You are not welcome here.”
While U.S. institutions still top global rankings—with Harvard, MIT, and Stanford dominating the QS World University Rankings—reputation alone may no longer be enough. As one student in Singapore told SCMP, “Uncertainty has costs.” Students are not just questioning whether they can complete their education—they’re wondering if they’ll be deported mid-semester, or whether their parents’ financial sacrifices will be wasted.
Alternative destinations are gaining traction. Singapore, the UK, Australia, Canada, and even countries like China and Japan are offering pathways that don’t involve the same risks. Malaysia’s Majlis Amanah Rakyat has already redirected its indigenous scholarship students away from the U.S. toward less volatile environments.
U.S. higher education has long depended on the tuition and intellectual contributions of international students. In 2023–24 alone, they added $43.8 billion to the American economy and supported over 378,000 jobs. The sector's economic value aside, these students enrich classrooms, expand cross-cultural understanding, and bolster the country’s soft power. But these gains are being squandered by political short-sightedness and strategic cruelty.
The Higher Education Inquirer has previously reported on the structural rot in U.S. higher education—skyrocketing tuition, exploitative labor practices, administrative bloat—but this emerging international student crisis underscores a moral and strategic failing at the national level. We are watching in real time as the U.S. forfeits its role as a global education leader.
Yes, as some education consultants told the SCMP, the appeal of U.S. credentials will likely survive this political moment. But the long-term damage may be harder to repair. Trust, once broken, is not easily restored.
The Trump administration has made its vision of higher education and international exchange abundantly clear: exclusion over inclusion, suspicion over scholarship, nationalism over knowledge.
If this is what “America First” looks like in the classroom, students around the world are wisely deciding it may not be worth the risk.
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The Higher Education Inquirer continues to monitor and report on how authoritarian and neoliberal forces are reshaping global education systems, with consequences that extend far beyond the campus gates.
