Specifics aside, Trump’s rule will mean less global exchange

The election of Donald Trump inserts uncertainty into higher education in the United States. Trump, a Republican, will assume a second term as president in January 2025 after a four-year interlude by Democratic President Joe Biden.

On the World of Higher Education podcast, and in the Chronicle of Higher Education, I argue that Trump’s second term could bring a right-wing culture war to US higher education while making it easier to extract private profits from the sector.

Because Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement traffics in ethno-nationalism, his administration may be concerning for international students and scholars in the US, and broadly for internationalisation. I don’t know with certainty how things will play out; no one does. Still, I see several ways in which the incoming administration could impact internationalisation.

International student enrolment

Trump’s rhetoric is confusing. In July, while speaking to a group of Silicon Valley executives, Trump said that he wanted to issue automatic green cards to all international students who graduate from US universities. But the overall tone of his campaign was nationalist. He has promised to install immigration hard-liners into key positions, and has threatened to deport student protesters.

His first term led to speculation about a negative ‘Trump effect’ on international student enrolment. According to Open Doors, which tracks international students in the US, total international student numbers were down by 15% when he left office in 2020-21 compared to when he was elected in the 2016-17 academic year.

It’s hard to pin that all on Trump – the pandemic was disruptive – but international student enrolments rebounded to 98% of 2016 levels by the 2022-23 academic year. With countries like Australia and Canada capping international student numbers, the US might be in a good position to increase enrolments from abroad, if the administration does not create too many headwinds.

Negative interactions and surveillance

International students and scholars have long faced racist and nativist interactions. Emboldened by Trump’s victory, some of his apparent followers are already amping up targeted expressions of racism and hate – although Trump’s spokesperson has denied any connection between the latest racist messages sent to black Americans and the Trump campaign.

Nonetheless, international students and scholars could well experience an uptick in negative interactions, which will surely be reported back home through social media. Prospective international students anticipating negative experiences might look away from the US.

Surveillance is another way that the new administration could dampen the climate for international scholars. Under the first Trump administration, the FBI’s ‘China Initiative’ investigated US based researchers who collaborated with colleagues in China.

Chinese heritage scientists suspected of having mixed loyalties were especially targeted. Investigations uncovered few national security risks but created a climate of fear and intimidation. Trump allies are eager to re-start the surveillance programme, which could prompt researchers to avoid international collaborations or avoid US academia altogether.

College and university leaders fearing Trump’s ire may de-emphasise internationalisation. While it is unlikely that academic leaders will adopt Trump’s openly xenophobic stance, simply shifting the focus away from international and cross-cultural exchange could contribute to a chilly climate by dampening the energy that faculty and staff would otherwise devote to global engagement.

Visa restrictions

Immigration analysts are unsure what the incoming administration will mean for immigration regulations.

Currently the US does not cap international student visas, and colleges and universities are partially exempt from the strict cap on skilled worker – H-1B – visas. While there is no direct path from being an international student to becoming a permanent resident, since the Bush administration STEM graduates have been eligible to stay in the country for a period of Optional Practical Training, during which many are able to find work-visa sponsorship.

This relatively open immigration environment for students and scholars is part of the reason the US is a magnet for academics globally.

Beyond Trump, US culture and the stance of the federal government is becoming more populist. The immigration environment for international students and scholars declined before his re-election. Student visa processing times are abnormally long, and the denial rate has increased, especially among applicants from India.

Some analysts are optimistic that Trump will focus on unauthorised immigration, and may even boost legal pathways such as the skilled-migrant H-1B programme.

It is surely true that Trump has sent mixed messages. But his instincts are nationalist, and he is surrounded by advisors who despise immigration. I anticipate that we will more likely see restrictions on visas than a favourable regulatory stance.

During his first term, Trump attempted to impose a range of restrictions on international travel and visas. These restrictions were mostly blocked by courts. His advisors may have learned from that experience and are now prepared to write more effective rules, and the judiciary – transformed by Trump’s appointees – may be more open to his authority.

The administration could also install officials in the State Department that further slow processing times or set more stringent approval criteria. Time will tell. The most dramatic changes to the immigration system would have to happen through Congress.

Trump ally Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, for example, has previously proposed a law that would bar Chinese nationals from getting student visas for STEM programmes. But getting big legislation passed will be hard to do.

Academic decoupling

Trump is wary of institutional ties that link the US with other countries and of the multilateral global order. During his previous term, Trump imposed import tariffs and sought to decouple commercial and scientific ties with China. Both Democrats and Republicans are wary of China as a great power rival. We can almost certainly expect further limits to American-Sino engagement in Trump’s second term.

Academic decoupling could happen by placing further export and technology transfer controls that make it difficult for US academics to collaborate with colleagues, including students, from China and other countries, or in some circumstances simply bar such collaborations. Given the importance of US-China collaboration to science worldwide, this decoupling could slow the global pace of discovery.

The next Trump administration is poised to further restrict international engagement in science and research. From 2017 to 2020, his proposed budgets for the federal government included deep cuts to science funding agencies and some versions of his budget floated specific proposals to axe parts of the National Institutes of Health that supported global health research.

Congress did not indulge most of Trump’s requests to cut science spending before, but this time he is poised to place some health and science policy in the hands of Robert F Kennedy Jr, a deep sceptic of health science, and invite Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, to recommend deep cuts to the federal government.

The specifics are difficult to predict, but all indicators suggest that support for science, and especially global science, will wane. All of this suggests an environment that is less conducive for international academic exchange than in the past decades.

Professor Brendan Cantwell is based at the department of educational administration at Michigan State University, USA, where he is the Dr Mildred B Erickson Distinguished Chair in Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education (2024-27).

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.