The Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies are causing colleges to lose money, according to the New York Times. As institutions of higher education continue to try and balance budgets with measures including increased dependency on lower-paid adjunct professors and skyrocketing tuition, international students have provided extra cash that many schools can no longer depend on.
Just as many universities believed that the financial wreckage left by the 2008 recession was behind them, campuses across the country have been forced to make new rounds of cuts, this time brought on, in large part, by a loss of international students.
Schools in the Midwest have been particularly hard hit — many of them non-flagship public universities that had come to rely heavily on tuition from foreign students, who generally pay more than in-state students.
It isn’t just Trump’s racist xenophobia that’s contributing to lower enrollment by international students—but it certainly isn’t helping. With fewer students paying higher tuition, colleges are left with new financial challenges.
Now that the revenue stream appears to be diminishing, the financial outlook may be dire enough to weigh down the bond ratings of some schools, making it more expensive for them to borrow money, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Last month, Moody’s changed its credit outlook for higher education to “negative” from “stable.”
“Growing uncertainty for international student enrollment stems from immigration policies that are in flux,” Moody’s said, warning that universities without global brand recognition would be hit hardest.
Surveys found that last year 40 percent of schools saw a decline in international applicants, which lead to a 7 percent drop in international student enrollment. Honestly, I can’t blame them. With other countries like Canada and Australia as competition, it’s almost a no-brainer that students would want to go to a place that is more stable in its immigration policies—and the government overall.