Between late March and late April, over 1,000 international students throughout the United States reportedly lost their visas or legal status. In late May 2025, the Trump administration announced that it had stripped Harvard University of the certification required to enroll international students. Shortly after a federal judge temporarily blocked the restrictions against Harvard, officials denied a visa to a postdoctoral student.
The latest in the administration’s assaults on elite universities – which Trump and his allies view as bastions of “left-wing indoctrination” – the move to restrict student visas is particularly troubling, if the restrictions broaden to cover a larger number of U.S. universities.
Critics of these policies point out the important contributions international students make toward innovation, and the U.S. economy more broadly. And any attempts to limit the number of foreigners studying in U.S. universities will have ripple effects far beyond current politics or the U.S. economy. Indeed, the research suggests these new restrictions are already having a negative impact on the U.S. image and influence abroad.
Education has long been an important global foreign policy tool
Educational programs are just one example of “soft power,” a term coined by political scientist Joseph Nye to capture a country’s “ability to shape the preferences of others.” “Hard power,” in contrast, involves wielding sticks (and perhaps using carrots) to influence another country’s behavior. But soft power is about persuading others, as Nye put it, to “want the outcomes that you want.” For decades, education has been a large part of the broader cultural arm of soft power, alongside television, music, sports, cuisine, and so forth.
The U.S. and other democratic countries have long relied on education to project their values and interests abroad. Transmitting American democratic values was a major objective of U.S.-government sponsored educational exchange programs during the Cold War, for example. It’s difficult to quantify the effectiveness of such efforts – but evidence suggests that individuals educated in democratic countries do indeed promote democracy in their home countries.
Democracies are not the only regimes to use education as a soft power tool. Authoritarian countries have a long history of attracting foreign students not only for economic reasons, but also to cultivate allies abroad. In previous research, for example, I studied how the Soviet Union educated tens of thousands of Cuban students to buttress its socialist ally, both economically and ideologically.
Of course, educating foreign students does not always secure influence. China is another example of an autocracy that directs massive resources toward international education. The government-sponsored Confucius Institutes are one way Beijing promotes the Chinese language and culture around the globe. In 2020, the State Department accused the U.S. branch of the Chinese organization of “advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses,” leading to the closure of many centers in the U.S. However, survey research casts doubt on the idea that China is successfully indoctrinating American students via this program.
Restricting international students will damage the U.S. image abroad
Over 1 million international students – about 6% of the overall student population – currently study in U.S. universities. A 2024 report from the Open Doors project shows India and China sending the most students. Despite Trump’s focus on Harvard, it doesn’t crack the top ten U.S. universities for international enrollment – even with international students comprising 25% of the Harvard student body. New York University ranks at the top of the list, with over 27,000 foreign students enrolled during the 2023-24 academic year.
Foreign students make a hefty contribution to the U.S. economy – accounting for nearly $44 billion and 400,000 U.S. jobs, by one estimate. But they also help strengthen the country’s image abroad. In a 2021 survey by the American Council on Education, 64% of respondents (all of them U.S. voters) agreed that “encouraging students from other countries to come to the U.S. to attend college or university promotes international goodwill.” Many foreign PhDs, particularly in the sciences, remain in the United States. An overwhelming majority of bachelor’s degree recipients ultimately leave the country, however, taking their experiences and knowledge with them.
Many international students eventually assume positions of influence in their home countries or elsewhere, becoming economic and political leaders. In 2022, for example, 41 world leaders had been educated in the United States. Only the United Kingdom, where 50 world leaders studied at some point, ranked higher. Preventing future leaders from studying in the U.S. curtails lifelong connections that would otherwise foster peace, cooperation, and economic growth. And lower numbers of international students would also deprive the U.S. of an important source of strength (and geopolitical leverage): the vast alumni networks. Meanwhile, the world’s best and brightest students will go elsewhere.
The pros of vastly outweigh the cons
It would be naive to suggest that the stream of international students coming to study in the U.S. is an unqualified good – or that every experience contributes to global peace. But the pros vastly outweigh the cons of admitting international students.
Admitting increasing numbers of foreign students – who tend to come from privileged backgrounds – potentially contributes to the frustration among a large fraction of the American population that elite universities are “out of touch,” and no longer engines of social mobility. Skyrocketing tuition costs have made college prohibitively expensive for many Americans, and leave graduates with crippling student debt. Yet, exposure to diverse international perspectives also benefits American students as they enter an increasingly globalized world. Moreover, colleges maintain the power to level the playing field for lower-income students – although the ability of students in need to access the universities that provide the greatest mobility appears to have declined over time.
From a foreign policy perspective, some might object to the children of autocratic elites benefiting from an American education. Xi Jinping’s daughter attended Harvard, for example – as did the daughter of Uzbekistan’s former autocratic ruler Islam Karimov. But for every dictator’s daughter is a Maia Sandu, the Moldovan president who has battled malign Russian influence, and continues to advance Moldova’s aspiration to join the European Union.
Others might point out that foreign students could use their American education to the benefit of U.S. adversaries like China. However, as the former head of the FBI’s academic alliance program notes, the number of Chinese students who might pose a risk to U.S. national security pales in comparison to the number of dedicated researchers whose contributions will advance American science and technology. If the U.S. closes its doors, then these students will take their skills elsewhere – including China.
While the benefits that international students bring to the United States are difficult to quantify precisely, there is strong evidence that they outweigh the costs. As long as the U.S. remains a destination associated with opportunity, it is likely to continue attracting ambitious students from abroad. Restricting access could risk undermining the country’s global reputation and soft power.
Isabelle DeSisto is a 2025-2026 Good Authority fellow.
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