Schools’ Reaction To Trump’s In-Person Mandate: A Unanimous ‘Not Helpful’

A DECISION THAT ‘CREATES MORE UNCERTAINTY AND COMPLEXITY’ FOR INTERNATIONALS

According to a new study from Envoy Global, the majority of employers indicated that their foreign national hires are already working or studying in the U.S. About 57% of employers said U.S-based universities were a primary recruiting source, and 54% listed U.S. graduate schools. Meanwhile, 74% said they considered Canada’s immigration policy to be more favorable than that of the U.S, with 45% stating ease of transition from student visas to employee visas was a positive aspect of the Canadian immigration system.

These are the kinds of facts that underlie B-schools’ opposition to any change that might have a negative impact on the flow of talent from other shores. Reacting to this week’s ICE’s exemption rollback, Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said Stanford is working to assess and respond to the new guidelines.

“We are concerned about this decision, which will create more uncertainty and complexity for international students,” Tessier-Lavigne said in an announcement published on the university’s website. “Our international students must be able to continue making progress toward completing their degrees, and as a university, we intend to support them in doing so. We will be working with our peers and national associations to understand how best to accomplish that in the context of these new rules, as well as to urge the Administration to rethink its position. We will be in continuing communication with our international students as we gather more information.”

Stanford has been planning to have roughly half of its undergraduate student body and all of its graduate and professional school students in residence on campus at any given time during the coming academic year, but the university will have to offer many or most courses online, Tessier-Lavigne said.

“Our focus and efforts right now are on analyzing the DHS guidance to provide Stanford students accurate and timely information,” Shalini Bhutani, executive director of the Bechtel International Center, wrote in a message to international students on Monday. “Please know that the Stanford community is committed to supporting international students.”

A ‘BLUNT, ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH TO A COMPLEX PROBLEM’

Harvard President Bacow issued his own statement, separate from the school’s announcement of its lawsuit with MIT.

“In recent weeks, like many of our colleague institutions across the country, Harvard has announced plans for the fall semester. Our schools have taken into account the most up-to-date public health and safety guidance, the specific educational requirements of their programs, and their unique student populations. The well-being of the University community has been our highest priority in making these difficult decisions.

“We are deeply concerned that the guidance issued (Monday) by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement imposes a blunt, one-size-fits-all approach to a complex problem, giving international students, particularly those in online programs, few options beyond leaving the country or transferring schools. This guidance undermines the thoughtful approach taken on behalf of students by so many institutions, including Harvard, to plan for continuing academic programs while balancing the health and safety challenges of the global pandemic.

“We will work closely with other colleges and universities around the country to chart a path forward. We must do all that we can to ensure that our students can continue their studies without fear of being forced to leave the country mid-way through the year, disrupting their academic progress and undermining the commitments — and sacrifices — that many of them have made to advance their education.”

As one admit, a Chinese national, told P&Q: “The good thing is that HBS is going to go hybrid, meaning that HBS students will be eligible to apply for a visa — i.e. not much new, additional impact on us.”

Click here to read the full text of the lawsuit Harvard and MIT filed in federal court to stop the SEVP rule change.  

‘HIGHER ED IS GETTING HIT FROM ALL SIDES RIGHT NOW’

Diane Hernandez, an attorney in the employment and immigration law practice at the national law firm Hall Estill, says that by abruptly ending the temporary rule that allows foreign students to take online courses exclusively, the Trump administration is forcing U.S. colleges and universities to choose between losing all of their foreign national students or resuming in-person programming and risking the health of all of their students, faculty, staff, and other workers. “Ending the temporary rule without prior notice and with only weeks to go before the start of the fall semester puts foreign students in the untenable situation of finding a school that will allow a late transfer and risk the possibility of being exposed to the COVID virus, or leaving the US and possibly abandoning their plans to study in the US,” Hernandez says.

“Travel in and out of the US is unpredictable right now, leaving those students who are forced to leave the US without clear options; and for those students that are able to enter the US to study in-person, they are faced with the fact that US consulates abroad are still closed and unable to issue any new visas.  The announcement fails to address these issues,” Hernandez says.

Dean Jeff Brown at Illinois’ Gies College says the move is clearly deleterious for the U.S. economy.

“We know that high-skilled folks from around the world have historically wanted to study in the United States because we have the best university system in the world,” Brown told Yahoo Finance. “And many of those students, they come, they learn here, and they stay here. And when they stay here, they are not taking away jobs from Americans — they are building the economy, they are innovating, they are creating growth. Look at the tech sector and what fraction of employees at these tech firms — and in many cases the founders of these tech firms — were not born in the United States. We know that bringing high-skill immigrants to the United States — especially ones that we have invested in their education here — is good for the long-term growth of the economy.

“Putting the brakes on that in every conceivable way that they seem to be looking to do, I think we are actually hurting our global competitiveness. What CEO in the world thinks it’s a good idea to train some of the best workers in the world and then send them to the competition? That’s what we’re doing. We train these folks, give them Ph.D.s and master’s degrees and they’re some of the smartest people from all over the world, and instead of welcoming them here to start their businesses and to lead organizations here, we’re saying, ‘We don’t want you here, we want you to go back and compete with us and start your company in some other country in the world.’ It really just does not make economic sense.

“We at the University of Illinois have chosen to open this fall — we are going to be open. We are doing lots of testing, doing lots of social distancing, our classes are going to be hybrid so it will be a mix of online and face-to-face in order to make that happen. But a lot of schools have determined they don’t have the ability to do that. We are fortunate because we already have invested heavily in online presence … in my college, the Gies College of Business, 50% of our students were already enrolled in an online degree program long before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19. So we were in a position to be able to pull this off and not every school is. And the problem is, those schools that have determined they really can’t do on-campus effectively and therefore they are moving into an online environment, now you’ve just doubled down on the pain — and you’re either saying, ‘Look, we’re gonna send all your international students home’ or ‘We’re gonna force you to make what you have already determined is not the right decision for you, in order to try to force you open.’

“Higher ed is getting hit from all sides right now. We’re coming off several decades of decline in public support for higher education, now we have an economic recession which is affecting donors’ ability and willingness to be as philanthropic as in the past, we’ve seen endowment values take a hit and then, of course, they’ve climbed somewhat back, and then on top of that, what you’ve seen in that universities over the last couple of decades have come to rely on international students who pay a lot more in tuition than domestics do. A lot of the dollars from international students go directly in to support scholarships for U.S. residents. So in my own college, we have a differential, that is specific to the business school, for international students, and we put 50% of that money straight into scholarships for Illinois residents. So if that dries up, that is less money we have to support our in-state students from a scholarship standpoint.

“So the repercussions to these things are broad and wide and to be honest it’s just not helpful when we have one of our best industries, it’s core to everything else we do, we train the workers to go out there and help make the Teslas of the world successful, that help create the technologies that underlie so many of these tech companies, and it’s kind of like, ‘Let’s hit them while they’re down.’ It’s not a good thing for higher ed, but more importantly, it’s not a good thing for the long-term health of the U.S. economy.”

SCHOOLS, ORGS & CANDIDATES WEIGH-IN

Other reactions from around U.S. higher education:

• UPenn: “Penn is deeply disappointed by the most recent announcement that the federal government will not extend the online course maximum waiver that it put into place this spring. The educational requirements for international students should be the same as for domestic students — not higher or different in any way.”
• Duke University: “We are deeply concerned about the Administration’s new immigration directive that will limit the ability of qualified students and scholars to begin or continue their studies in the United States. This is a misguided effort that will only harm talented young people and the colleges and universities that are vital to our society.”
• Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called the guidelines “horrifying,” saying in a statement that the rule change raises more questions than it answers and does more harm than good. “Iron-clad federal rules are not the answer at this time of great uncertainty,” he said.
• Craig Lindwarm, vice president of governmental affairs for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, said he is concerned about the message it sends in the long-term about the value of international students to the United States. “The guidance is unworkable and deeply harmful,” Lindwarm said. “There is a global competition for the best and brightest students, and the United States continues to lose ground in this competition.”

And presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden weighed in on Twitter, saying “Across the world, people come to this country with unrelenting optimism and determination toward the future. They study here, innovate here, they make America who we are. Donald Trump doesn’t get that — we need a president who does.”

DON’T MISS: U.S. TO FOREIGN MBA STUDENTS: TAKE IN-PERSON CLASSES OR GET OUT or B-SCHOOLS REACT TO TRUMP’S SUSPENSION OF H-1B VISAS