The current U.S. federal policy stance towards international student enrollment is having consequences, regardless of the actual enrollment numbers. Articles are highlighting changes and impacts, which means that the perception starts to become the reality. In a world where brand has permeated every facet of our society, the “brand value” of the U.S. on the international stage is impacted by policy.
The clearest view of the consequences is the latest report on Navitas perception data showing that only 31% of agents see the U.S. as “safe and stable” compared to 88% seeing leading country, New Zealand in this light.
Policy decisions that are enacted ostensibly to limit abuse of U.S. higher education to chain into a permanent migration by limiting visas to four years may provide a sense of security to nativists protecting U.S. student enrollment and job opportunities, but the scale is relatively small. International students account for around 4.5% of total enrollments within the U.S. And there are potentially unintended consequences for certain institutions, as highlighted by a Brookings Institution article “colleges affiliated with Christian churches would be disproportionally affected. One suspects this was not the Trump administration’s intention.”
These short term headline grabbing policies also have longer term impacts. If we are losing students who were interested in education in the U.S. to Europe and other countries, we are losing not just a student enrollment, but a lifetime of potential. And while not all international students will stay to give birth to another Steve Jobs or Barack Obama, the reduction of enrollments does reduce our chances. It may not be the international student him or herself, but the generational impact of losing the student who becomes the parent or biological father or mother of the first generation business or political leader. Even more directly impacted would be the CEOs of two of America’s largest companies, both Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Sundar Pichai (Google parent, Alphabet) came to the States to pursue education and stayed to lead stock market darlings. Not every international student will be as successful, but the pipeline increases the chances.
There are legitimate and interesting arguments about IP theft, espionage, and even foreign influence. The concept that our “soft-power” is being “weaponized” by international students is not new, during the cold war, McCarthyism and the “red scare” faced university campuses and were well documented. We should not be naive to think that “bad actors” cannot exist within an otherwise beneficial system and we should utilize this moment to renew our awareness of this fact. However, this does not mean that we need to shut down an entire system that has historically delivered more economic benefits than it has taken away. Estimates suggest that current international enrollment declines could have a $3.5 billion impact on the economy and international students are estimated to contribute $55 billion and 355,000 jobs according to Open Doors’ analysis.
Building brand trust takes time, breaking that trust is much faster and harder to repair. The U.S. higher education system built its international reputation by expanding into far flung countries drafting off missionary-founded colleges in the late-1800s, institutions like the American University of Beirut and Robert College in Istanbul and expanding with programs like the Boxer Indemnity scholarships in 1908 as a way to send Chinese students to American universities. We continued to expand our international influence with innovations like the Fulbright Program in 1946. That is over 100 years of building and investing in the brand value of American education on the global stage. Education provides value and opportunity. We should continue to look for ways to utilize our system as an asset at home and abroad.
The path forward should build off the advances that institutions like Rutgers New Brunswick, Temple and the University of Maine are experiencing by opening up pathways for increased international enrollment while maintaining opportunities for domestic students. Having access to both provides a better educational experience.
