Colleges and universities have generally ended their spring semesters, but the summer — and upcoming fall term — could include a lot of changes in their student bodies, specifically when it comes to international students.
The Trump administration has paused new student visa interviews for international students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio then said he’d revoke student visas for Chinese students with ties to the Communist Party and those working in “critical fields.”
Rebecca Carballo has written about this and covers education for Politico. Carballo joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: And Rebecca, how big of a deal is it for universities to have international students attend their schools?
REBECCA CARBALLO: Well, it does, it varies upon university, but for some schools, you know, international students make up 10% or so of their student bodies. Some others it's 5%. But, you know, they definitely have a sort of intrinsic value to their campuses. They offer sort of, you know, cultural value. They also tend to pay a little bit more in tuition. So it's definitely something that's going to impact universities.
BRODIE: I'm curious about the financial impact because as you reference, a lot of international students pay full tuition if not maybe even a little bit more. So what would be the hit to universities, you know, ASU or others if, you know, international students are no longer allowed to be there?
CARBALLO: Yeah, so for public universities in particular, like ASU, generally speaking, international students will pay out-of-state tuition and then some. So there's studies that show that in some cases they can pay anywhere from $500 to about like $5,000 more, so on top of what an out of state tuition fee is, and at the end of the day, that's like, that extra revenue is actually used for student aid or scholarships sometimes for domestic students among other expenses.
BRODIE: So, are university officials saying that if they have fewer or no international students that some of those aid programs and others might have to either be scaled back or go away?
CARBALLO: You know, it's been somewhat challenging getting in touch with universities on some of these issues, because there is a real chilling effect here.
They've seen sort of how the administration has come after Harvard, come after Columbia, and I do think that sort of dampens what universities are willing to say publicly.
We heard back from the University of California and they basically said, you know, we would really like to, you know, we would like to see these pauses on student interviews left, but, you know, they didn't really get into what exactly the financial impact would be for them just yet.
BRODIE: I'm curious about the timing of this because as you report, this seems to be the time of year when those interviews tend to take place. So it almost sounds like even if the policy is ultimately changed, you know, weeks or or months down the road, it seems like it they will still have an impact based on the timing and the amount of time that students and the government need to sort of get everything in line for these students to be able to come here.
CARBALLO: Yeah, right now it's sort of visa interview season. Students have put down deposits, they've made decisions, they've told schools I'm coming in the fall, and right now they're doing visa, or they would be doing, visa interviews. And you know, that's something you kinda, it needs to be done before you get to campus on the fall. So that's sort of throwing a wrench in things and it's causing a lot of anxiety because schools don't know how long this pause is going to last.
BRODIE: I know that you mentioned it's been kind of difficult to get universities to comment on these kinds of things, but I'm wondering if they have said anything about how they are trying to plan or, you know, what they're actually doing to try to adjust to these changing rules.
CARBALLO: I talked to a lot of the association groups that, you know, lobby for universities and are in touch with the universities, and they tell me what they're hearing from campus leaders is right now they're just trying to share as much information with students as possible, saying, you know, this is what the State Department has said publicly about Chinese visas, and, you know, there isn't a ton of, there's a ton of details here, but this is what we know.
And so, so just kind of keeping students up to date on the small amount of the information that has been made public is I think everything they can do right now.
BRODIE: Are those advocacy groups sharing any kind of lobbying efforts that universities are trying to do or efforts behind the scenes to try to get some of these policies reversed?
CARBALLO: You know, I'm sure there's some closed door conversations with their lawmakers and their representatives, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some sort of lawsuits or legal actions stemming from this, but I haven't heard of anything just yet.
BRODIE: OK. Does anybody have any sense of what student bodies at universities might look like in the fall, especially as you referenced public universities that really do rely in large part on international students to help cover the cost of other kinds of programs.
CARBALLO: So a lot of folks are anticipating a dip in international enrollment, you know, obviously there's, you know, colleges are tracking metrics on how many international students are responding like, yes, I accept this admission offer, no I don't, and, sources of mine that are in touch with university officials say across the board, they're seeing less, international students accepting admission offers.
So I think that's like kind of an early indicator in some places that, OK, we might see a dip of enrollment in the fall.
BRODIE: Hm. Do university folks think this is a temporary kind of thing or or might this be a permanent shift that international students might decide to not go to universities in the U.S. but might go elsewhere?
CARBALLO: Like the, the general response on that is mixed. I think, you know, as, as we see sort of the policy decisions play out in this administration. I think universities are preparing maybe for more chilling effects than international enrollment being encouraged. I think that you know, over the next, at least in the fall, we'll see a dramatic decrease. It's hard to forecast though, beyond that.
A lot of folks have told me that this is really going to affect global competitiveness, and our ability to research and be at the forefront of certain fields, and it's just overall gonna hurt our ability to like attract top minds and people who are really at the top of their game in very specific, highly specialized fields.
