The Sigh Of Relief Business School Leaders Can’t Express

There is one constituency that has particularly good reason to welcome the results of the 2026 midterms: U.S. business school leadership. Democrats have won control of both the House and Senate, delivering a stunning political setback to President Donald Trump and ending the Republican congressional protection that has helped his administration pursue its campaign against higher education. The new Democratic majorities take office in January, with a strong mandate to put a stop to Trump’s war on higher ed.

B-school deans may not be holding celebrations or issuing statements of congratulations. They have trustees, donors, alumni, faculty, and corporate partners to consider. But in private conversations with leaders across the country this year, the sentiment conveyed to me has been consistent: deep concern about the Trump administration’s treatment of higher ed, and relief at the prospect of the election result that just occurred.

For business education, this is more than a political development. It is a reason for hope.

B-SCHOOLS HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE

There is a reason B-school leaders have good reason to welcome a change in Washington. They have been through a Trump presidency once before, and they remember what it cost them.

During Trump’s first term, opposition from business school leadership was unusually direct and public. In January 2017, Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria condemned Trump’s travel ban, warning that its implementation had created “disruption and fear” and “undercuts the very foundation of academic institutions like HBS.” A year later, Duke Fuqua Dean Bill Boulding was equally blunt. “There’s no doubt that immigration policy is having a negative impact on U.S. business schools,” he told Poets&Quants. He described parents overseas asking whether their children would be safe on American campuses and warned that the United States was losing its pipeline of international talent.

By 2019, the frustration had become organized action. Fifty B-school deans from across the country publicly called for immigration reform, backing a 32-page white paper, a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal, and an open letter to Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and congressional leaders. Their message was that restrictions on skilled immigration and international talent threatened America’s long-term competitiveness. The protests continued in June 2020, when Trump suspended several employment-based visa categories, including H-1B visas, prompted B-school leaders to again speak out. Boulding and other deans warned that restricting skilled immigration would undermine innovation, competitiveness and American jobs.

The consequences were measurable. In 2021, P&Q examined international MBA enrollment at 49 leading American business schools and found that 41 had lost international enrollment between 2017 and 2020. The pandemic also affected those numbers, but the broader trend was unmistakable. P&Q noted how vociferously business-school deans had opposed Trump’s immigration policies—and how relieved they were to see him lose reelection.

THE SILENCE NOW IS DEAFENING

The contrast with Trump’s second term is striking. There has been no comparable public campaign by U.S. B-school deans against the president – not even as the administration’s actions against higher education have become more sweeping.

Not fewer statements. No comparable public challenge.

That silence should not be mistaken for indifference. In private conversations with B-school leaders, the sentiment conveyed to me has consistently run in one direction: concern about the administration’s actions and relief that voters might install – and now have installed – a congressional check on Trump.

Why won’t they say so publicly? Because a B-school dean is not a political commentator with the luxury of speaking freely. Deans lead institutions that depend on government funding, federal research support, corporate partnerships, and the goodwill of influential donors and trustees – some of them, no doubt, supporters of Trump. Picking a public fight with the White House can carry a price – not just for the dean, but for the university and the people who depend on it. In today’s political climate, silence is often the safer institutional strategy.

Consider the record. The administration froze roughly $2.2 billion in research grants to Harvard after the university rejected federal demands touching governance, hiring and academic programs. The funding fight went to the appeals court in October, with hundreds of Harvard Business School alumni among those backing the university. The administration also tried to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students, a move blocked by a federal judge.

Business schools have felt the pressure around diversity programs, too. In early 2025 the Department of Education opened an investigation involving The Ph.D. Project and 45 affiliated universities and B-schools; meanwhile, Texas McCombs ended a 40-year partnership with the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, Virginia Darden suspended its Consortium and Forté partnerships, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School ended its Forté membership. The schools gave different explanations, and not every decision can be attributed directly to Washington. But the timing and the broader retreat from diversity initiatives were difficult to ignore.

AMERICA IS LOSING THE WORLD’S MBA CANDIDATES

Perhaps nowhere is the damage wrought by Trump more consequential to business schools than in international recruitment. For generations, the American MBA has been a global proposition: a world-class education, access to influential networks and the opportunity to build a career in the world’s largest economy. That proposition depends on the belief that talented people from around the world are welcome in the United States and have a reasonable chance of working here after graduation.

That confidence has been badly shaken. In February, P&Q reported that 40% of non-U.S. graduate-management candidates said they were less likely to study in the U.S. under a Trump presidency. The share of international candidates who preferred the U.S. fell from 57% in January 2025 to 42% by December.

The latest application figures are even more troubling. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2026 Application Trends Survey, apps to U.S. graduate business programs fell 25% in 2026. Full-time MBA apps declined 27%. International app to U.S. graduate business programs fell 38%, compared with a 6% decline in domestic applications. The U.S. suffered the sharpest regional decline in the world, even as applications grew in continental Europe and East and Southeast Asia.

Class of 2028 profiles at some prominent American B-schools offer a striking illustration of what is happening on the ground. MIT Sloan received 4,228 applications, a 25% decline from the previous year. Dartmouth’s Tuck School received 2,237, down 31.5% from a year earlier. UCLA Anderson received 2,422, a 21% fall from the previous year’s 3,064. Michigan Ross did not disclose its application total, but acknowledged a “moderate year-over-year decline” as its incoming class shrank from 379 students to 357 and its international share fell from 40% to 31%.

These are not marginal fluctuations at obscure programs. They are some of the most recognizable names in American graduate business education. Their experiences make the national numbers harder to dismiss.

Nor is there much reason to assume the problem has run its course. Last month P&Q reported a fresh round of concern about the current admissions cycle. Leading MBA admissions consultants weighed in on reports of another Round 1 slump at top U.S. programs; some described a significant slowdown in their own applicant pipelines and conversations with admissions directors. Others urged caution, noting that schools had yet to release official figures and that the picture was not uniform.

These experts pointed to a combination of political and economic uncertainty, anxiety about the job market and artificial intelligence, immigration concerns, and candidates who are increasingly reluctant to leave secure jobs for an expensive degree. The reported slowdown may not yet be reflected in official application totals, but it is another warning sign for schools already dealing with a difficult cycle.

Schools themselves understand the policy problem. Fifty-four percent of U.S. programs surveyed by GMAC said changes in visa policies and practices had a major impact on application volume, making it the most frequently cited factor. A weak job market and new federal graduate-loan limits have added to the pressure.

THE ELECTION SENDS A MESSAGE TO THE WORLD

This is not just a bad admissions cycle. It is a potential long-term transfer of talent, institutional relationships, and economic advantage. A candidate who chooses Singapore or Milan this year may build a career there, hire graduates from those schools, and encourage the next generation to follow.

And that is where the midterm results matter beyond Washington.

The election cannot reverse visa restrictions overnight, restore frozen research funding, or guarantee that international graduates will find jobs in the United States. Democrats won’t take control of the House and Senate until January. Even when they do, facing a hostile Trump administration that has two more years in power, they won’t be able to instantly undo the damage to America’s reputation among prospective students and their families.

But the results send a signal: American voters have demonstrated that the country’s political direction is neither fixed nor uncontested. A new Congress will have the power to investigate the administration, scrutinize its policies, challenge its funding decisions and provide a meaningful check on executive authority. For prospective students in India, China, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, that will matter. It offers a reason to reconsider whether the U.S. is, after all, a good and reasonable place to pursue a graduate business education and perhaps a postgraduate career.

It’s a message American business schools are desperate to have prospective applicants hear. They need international students for their tuition revenue, their intellectual diversity, their classroom perspectives, and the global networks they create. They need the world to believe that an American MBA is still worth choosing.

And this is why B-school leaders have reason to be so pleased with the election result. They may not say so publicly. They may not even want their names attached to the sentiment. But the prospect of a Congress that will scrutinize the administration’s treatment of higher education – and an America that may once again look welcoming to the world’s talent – is very good news for their institutions.

For the first time in two years, American business schools have reason to believe that the country might stop driving the world’s best future managers away and start giving them a reason to come back. The deans may not say it. Their institutions have every reason to hope it.

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