ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In a letter today to Harvard University, the Trump administration revoked the school's ability to enroll international students. It's part of a weekslong battle that began when Harvard refused to follow demands from the administration to overhaul its campus policies. The administration has already frozen billions of dollars in federal funding for the university, and without international students, Harvard stands to lose another crucial source of revenue. NPR's Jonaki Mehta is following the story. Hi, Jonaki.
JONAKI MEHTA, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What did the administration tell Harvard in this letter?
MEHTA: So in the letter, the Department of Homeland Security says that Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification has been revoked. In a statement, DHS said, quote, "Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status." It goes on to say that Harvard's leadership has made their campus an unsafe environment by, quote, "permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students." And DHS claims many of those so-called agitators are foreign students. And Secretary Kristi Noem said it's not a privilege - it's a privilege, not a right for universities to enroll them and benefit from their tuition payments.
SHAPIRO: How has Harvard responded?
MEHTA: Yeah, so a spokesperson got back to us with a comment saying they consider the government's actions unlawful. They also said, quote, "we're fully committed to maintaining Harvard's ability to host our international students and scholars who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the university and this nation immeasurably."
SHAPIRO: How many international students does Harvard have, and how is this likely to impact the school's bottom line?
MEHTA: Yeah, so more than a quarter of the students who went to Harvard this school year were international students. That's nearly 6,800 students. It's a number that's grown steadily over the last two decades, according to Harvard's enrollment data. Tuition alone at Harvard is close to $60,000, so many of these students are paying a lot to be there. And Ari, if we zoom out from Harvard for a second, over a million international students attended higher-ed institutions in the U.S. in the last school year. And according to federal data, those students contributed more than $50 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023. And one more thing I'll note - international students generally aren't eligible for federal financial aid the same way domestic students are, so they often pay out of their own pockets to go to college in the U.S.
SHAPIRO: What's likely to happen next?
MEHTA: Well, the letter from DHS lays out a list of demands which Harvard has to meet in the next 72 hours if it wants to regain its ability to enroll international students. Those demands include turning over disciplinary records of those students, video and audio of international students participating in protests, any records of illegal, dangerous or violent activity involving them. So we'll see if Harvard complies with that request in the next few days.
SHAPIRO: But this is effective immediately, right? So what does it mean for students right now at Harvard who are from other countries?
MEHTA: Yeah, well, the letter from DHS indicates this order is effective immediately. And according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, when a university certification to admit international students is revoked, students can either try to transfer to another university, change their status or leave the U.S. But with graduation just a week away, it's unclear what options international students at Harvard might have right now. We'll just have to wait and see if Harvard takes legal action that will allow them to graduate. Harvard already does have a lawsuit against the Trump administration for freezing billions of dollars in federal funding that's set to go to trial in July.
SHAPIRO: That is NPR's Jonaki Mehta, who covers education for us. Thank you.
MEHTA: Thank you, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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