Posted on Sunday, June 8, 2025
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by Sarah Katherine Sisk
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The ongoing controversy over the Trump administration’s effort to bar Harvard from admitting new foreign students has highlighted a long-festering problem in American higher education. Even as American taxpayers send their hard-earned money to colleges and universities, those same institutions are admitting ever-increasing numbers of foreign-born students and forcing out American applicants.
Foreign students now fill more seats at American colleges than ever before. In 2023–24, U.S. universities enrolled more than 1.1 million international students – a record high, and a seven percent increase from the previous year, according to the 2024 Open Doors Report. The vast majority came from China and India, whose students make up more than half the total.
This isn’t just a handful of bright minds seeking opportunity. It’s a massive cohort – particularly at supposedly “elite” institutions.
At Columbia, which has become a hotbed of anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrations, 39 percent of the student body now hails from outside the United States, according to Reuters. The school’s foreign-born population increased by 18 percent from 2017 to 2022 alone.
At New York University, approximately 42 percent of the student body is foreign-born, and the school saw a 24 percent increase in that population from 2017 to 2022. At Northeastern University, an astonishing 58 percent of the student population was foreign-born in 2022.
American campuses can and should offer opportunities to foreign-born students. But in recent years there has been an exponential increase in the foreign-born population on campuses that raises all sorts of cultural and national security concerns.
One of the biggest open secrets in academia, particularly in STEM fields, is that the Chinese government sends students to infiltrate American universities and steal intellectual property to fuel China’s tech economy. Meanwhile, China admits precious few American students to its universities.
Cases like that of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and pro-Hamas activist who has played a key role in leading the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students on campus, also underscore how admitting foreign students who are openly hostile toward the United States and Western Civilization can create an atmosphere of fear and chaos on campus.
Moreover, the cold reality is that every acceptance letter sent out to a foreign-born student is a denial letter sent to an American applicant. Combining federal, state, and local contributions, U.S. taxpayers provide over $400 billion annually to support American colleges and universities. Is it really fair that their children are being passed over for admission in favor of applicants who have never paid a dime in U.S. taxes?
It’s not just educational opportunities, either. About 41 percent of international students remain in the U.S. after graduation, including 75 percent of PhD recipients, according to GZERO. As a result, more than 20 percent of the U.S. STEM workforce and STEM graduates from American universities are now foreign-born.
Those high-paying jobs are jobs that are not going to American-born workers. Are we really supposed to believe that the United States is not producing enough intelligent, qualified individuals to fill those roles? Balancing the benefits from international talent with the need to protect American job opportunities should remain an important goal for universities and lawmakers alike.
There are likely two major driving forces behind the explosion of foreign-born students on American campuses.
The first is the left’s obsession with identity politics and diversity quotas. University administrators love touting the number of minority (read: non-white) students in each freshman class – and there’s no easier way to fill chairs with “people of color” than admitting ever-increasing numbers of foreign applicants.
But the more compelling motive behind American universities eagerly courting foreign students is likely a financial one. International students typically pay full freight – no in-state discounts, no financial aid, just the sticker price. For colleges and universities hungry for revenue, that’s a deal too good to pass up.
In 2015, though they made up less than five percent of enrollment, foreign students delivered nearly 28 percent of all tuition dollars, a gap that has only grown as international enrollment climbs, according to GZERO. No university president wants to see that cash flow dry up.
This perverse incentive raises serious questions about what the priorities of American colleges and universities are and whom they ultimately exist to serve. When federal dollars flow to these institutions, there’s an expectation that those funds advance American interests. That means making sure American students are taken care of first.
Capping the percentage of foreign students at federally funded colleges is one way to enforce that principle. President Trump’s call for a 15 percent cap at Harvard brought this idea into public view, as reported by the Daily Caller.
The concept of a cap on foreign-born students as a condition for federal funding could be applied to other universities as well. The pitch is simple: if schools want access to American taxpayer dollars, they should prioritize American students.
International students undoubtedly enrich U.S. campuses with fresh ideas, diverse cultures, and a broader perspective on the world. For those students who truly grasp and value what America represents, their presence reminds us of the unique strengths and spirit of our nation, helping us see it with renewed admiration through their eyes. But those benefits shouldn’t come at the cost of hopeful American students ready to embrace the opportunity of higher education and build a better country on the other side of it.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
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