The public reaction to the Trump administration's decision to ban international students at Harvard is predominantly negative. Many view the policy as a short-sighted political maneuver that undermines academic freedom, educational values, and international collaboration. Critics warn of significant detrimental impacts on students' futures, U.S. global reputation, and international relations. There is notable concern about the authoritarian nature of the decision and its perceived motivation as a personal vendetta. Despite some nationalistic support, the broader public sentiment reflects outrage and fear over the precedent this policy sets for education and immigration.

Trump Administration

Harvard University

International Students

And people thought the brain drain in the US was bad before. This could be a death knell

kootles10

Giving_Getting10016

Everything he has done has come at a hefty price to the economy.

Thisam

Robert Solow won the Nobel prize from showing how effective human capital can be for economic growth. Attracting the best human capital would allow an economy to continue growing. You do not make an economy better by moving the goal post. You need to allocate resources in such a way the best growth can be achieved. This sometimes means having smarter people from abroad. Instead of moving the goal post and making foreigners less desirable, how about investing domestic resources into making Americans more competitive?

Hour-Awareness-9198

FunkyChedda


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Just intentionally bogging down the court system.  I wonder why they would do that?

ahoy_shitliner

What "law" is the Trump administration using to ban Harvard from accepting these students? I'm failing to understand how it is legal to try and do this?

SpeedRacerWasMyBro

catbaloney

For anything do with foreign, Trump would have to accept that he can't get any foreign donations.

Aranarch

Redditcanfckoff

Im telling you right now, our best and brightest are going to leave the country and EU and AZ/NZ are going to welcome them with open arms. We are truly a stupid people.

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Only until the senate passes his illegal bill taking away power from the judiciary and giving it to the executive branch.  

GateShip001

jakefrommyspace

An interesting angle here is that this might go all the way to the supreme court.  If it does, the country will get fucked.  Four judges went to Harvard, and you expect them to recuse themselves...

Kagan, Roberts, Jackson and Gorsuch

  
If those four were to recuse, the other 5 have to decide this:  Sotomayor, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Coney-Berret.  I do not like those odds.

AsiaSkyly

If judges could stop student debt relief. This is absolutely fair game.  And the correct decision

Cyndakill88

It’s remarkable that the Trump administration is willing to completely screw over 7000 current Harvard students to mildly inconvenience Harvard.

ddr1ver

Just until Wednesday when it’s heard for a temporary injunction. To be honest, I think Trump wins this one in the end. The statute gives pretty wide discretion to the executive on the certification.

Cartagraph

It's going to be in court for years, it will get a stay while it's being fought over,  luckily Harvard knows some pretty good lawyers.   That's my logical brain, the rest of me has fallen into a nihilistic funk.

wwaxwork

This is a very obvious attempt to get a major institution to bow down to his whims as a lesson to anyone else that might try to resist.

Cameronbic

Wanna know how Einstein ended up in America?

fossilnews

The party of “small government” sure is stretching the meaning of “small government.”

DreadfuryDK

I think we should stop looking at this as some sort of battle of the elites and look at the facts. This administration send a list of demands that are not codified into law to a university that is under no legal obligation to comply. Instead of working with the House and Senate to pass a fair and just law that applies to all universities equally, this administration chose to weaponize the government against a university that pushed back. This has nothing to do with education and everything to do with an authoritarian regime attempting to punish and silence dissent.

Routine-Present-3676

Awful, but i'm also worried about the part of the "Big beautiful bill" that basically takes away the courts ability to pursue contempt charges. SEC. 70302

Derpyhooves2010

Well I suppose that means the best and brightest in the world will be going to Cambridge and Oxford instead, or elsewhere around the world. America’s loss.

Also this is clearly illegal and I suspect it won’t last long. I mean it’s not like Harvard has a top notch law school with many of the US’ most knowledgeable lawyers, right? And it’s not like almost half the current Supreme Court are Harvard graduates…right?

Cimexus

Putin &amp; Xi couldn’t do a better job of ruining America than this president and  his administration has.

Yelloeisok

I think it is excellent. It will ensure a much higher standard of university and business. 

NOTE: I'm from New Zealand and education is our third largest export. 

This will ensure that the smartest people in the world will have to find other countries like ours to learn in. It will ensure that these gifted graduates will be available for New Zealand business, and will have a fond memory of our country which will lead to future deals and connections.

For Americans, it's the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. The foreign students were subsidising the local students. It's going to ensure that the top universities are stacked with the very smartest people in America.

While foreign universities will be packed with the very smartest in the whole world.

GodOfTheThunder

The government shouldn't have a say in private education and Harvard is a private institution. All the people who are saying it doesn't affect them are making the same mistake spoken about in the poem "Then they came for".

This is what slipping into an authoritarian state looks like. People allow their elected officials to hand power over to one person. Then they can't take it back.

jruff08

Just trying to make everyone dumb enough to vote for these fascist pricks.  Oh, and it’s clearly illegal.

Bitch_Posse

I couldnt imagine a series of actions so specifically coordinated to weaken and cripple a once-powerful nation that is any better than just handing over the news headlines of the series events this regime has orchestrated.

They are singularly cancerous to the American people and their way of life.

MrEngineer404

This user has deleted this comment/postThis user has deleted this comment/postThis user has deleted this comment/postThis user has deleted this comment/post

Significant-Gene9639

It's an intimidation tactic. They probably know it won't be allowed to happen, but they are systematically normalizing this type of overreach... They keep doing this stuff and people will stop paying attention.

TemperatureTop246

For those who don't know..international students bring big $$$ to universities (arguably subsidizing local students). Less international students = increase in tuition.

lyn73

I'm thinking of true long-term consequences. One of the country's top institutions being crippled like this (either losing all foreign students, or most as people won’t want to go to Harvard given the risks) sends a good chunk of American Soft Power down the drain. What little is left.

eggnogui

Doomed. Very doomed. This is the beginning of the chapter of a very dark and long book. May we see the end.

GraySide390

This was an intentional news distraction from the insane anti-working class spending bill they are jammed through Congress while everyone read asleep last night.

mark_able_jones_

He's a traitor to America, free speech, rule of law, our Constitution and the free World. His administration are traitors. His supporters are traitors. They are traitors to everything this country was built from and has always stood for. Traitors.

jonnyneptune

Aren't college/university international students the world over paying much higher fees that help subsidize USA students fees? Its the case in every other country and it sounds like more Trump buffoonery.

Braviosa

Even if (when) Harvard wins this in court the impact will be significant.  The US is rapidly becoming a less attractive place for smart people of all kinds except criminals.  We're witnessing the Russification of the country.  And Russia is not a magnet for smart, well-intentioned people.

Cranialscrewtop

I think they chose today so we wouldn’t look at the “big beautiful bill” that’s gutting education, healthcare, the environment and makes 34% of all spending direct payments from the younger working poor to old rich ppl.

Low-Care9531

Its pretty hilarious.


Because there's going to be a legal challenge that puts it on hold. And then Harvard can ask any one of its illustrious legal alumni to represent them.

DustyDeputy

I feel like he wouldn't have near as much power to do this bullshit without all his enablers in Congress.

bigedthebad

America, you've went from a democracy to an autocracy in under six months and it's getting worse every day.


What are you going to do about it?

Milnoc

Terrible, my girlfriend is currently an MBA student at the business school right now. 40% of the business school is international. It's chaos.

From a policy standpoint, this is absurd. You really want to deport the most gifted, and talented students the country? To misquote Trump, "they are sending their best."

They are getting rid of extremely competitive grants that were given to these researchers because they are the most qualified people to do this research in the country, as determined by an independent panel of experts.

They are punishing students who chose to go to Harvard before Trump was even re-elected, students who could have gone to their best university in their home country, and succeeded there. I know many of my a peers going to look at faculty jobs in Canada and Europe as direct result of these attacks on higher education.

I am currently finishing up my PhD at another Ivy League school.

Before folks ask what my research has been good for, I started working on something about 5 years ago called Large Language Models. My research and datasets have been directly used in models like ChatGPT, Llama, Roberta. I also published a paper just last year that is being directly used in Google's new Gemini Diffusion Language model that was just launched earlier this week.  Many of these are ideas I tried to pursue in industry, but I could not get the funding our resources to do this kind of research until ChatGPT was released in 2022, even at large tech companies for the most part. For context, when I started working on large language models, they were less than 20 people people working on this in the whole country, half of whom were at OpenAI.

Skylion007

It’s completely idiotic. It saves no public money, helps nobody, and wrecks the career prospects of people whose minds we need. 

I hope it’s tied up in court for so many decades that they have to dig up his great-grandchildren to be there for the verdicts.

angrymurderhornet

Honestly I'm just sick of hearing his name.

Salt732

An hour doesn't pass without Trump doing something stupid or hurtful or just evil.

hyperiongate

I'm feeling like it's not something that he should be even thinking about.  I'm feeling like the president is doing everything but his actual job.  Politics, MAGA, Democrats, all that aside, he is not doing his actual job, he just seems to be going on a revenge tour without the hot body or the little black dress.

HappinessLaughs

The better question is why the ass-hat isn't in jail. He's a convicted felon, right?

RIP USA

TeacherPowerful1700

Just another move in the fascist playbook.

United States is no longer a democracy.

createsean

mcstevied

Is he just mad they wouldn’t accept his lizard kid?

stripmallbars

1. They are a private business and he can't do that. 2. Trump is evil incarnate.

AuraNocte

Why would you not want educated international students spending a fuck ton of money in the U.S.? [Approx 44 billion USD in 23-24 SY, supporting nearly 400k US jobs.](https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/leading-research-universities-report/new-analysis-shows-international-students-contributed) This administration is hilariously fucking stupid. So is MAGA.

dokidokichab

The Trump administration's decision to ban international students at Harvard University has caused uncertainty for nearly 7,000 students. This has resulted in backlash and legal challenges, highlighting tensions between the administration and academic institutions.

Trump Administration's Ban on International Students at Harvard

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