Sanction on Harvard’s foreign students strikes at the heart of the university’s global allure

WASHINGTON — For students around the world, an acceptance letter to Harvard University has represented the pinnacle of achievement, offering a spot among the elite at a campus that produces Nobel Prize winners, captains of industry and global leaders.

That allure is now in jeopardy. In its intensifying fight with the White House, Harvard was dealt its heaviest blow yet on Thursday, when the government blocked the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students. The move threatens to undermine Harvard’s stature, its revenue and its appeal among top scholars around the world.

Even more than the government’s $2.6 billion in research cuts, the administration’s action represents an existential threat for Harvard. The school summed it up in a lawsuit seeking to block the action: “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

Within hours of the decision, the consequences were becoming clear. Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth, who just finished her first year in a Harvard graduate program, is waiting to find out if she can return next year, the royal palace said. The Chinese government publicly questioned whether Harvard’s international standing will endure.

“The relevant actions by the U.S. side will only damage its own image and international credibility,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a briefing in Beijing.

A federal judge on Friday blocked the administration’s decision for now by issuing a restraining order that stops the government from pulling Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. Belonging to the program allows Harvard to host international students with visas to study in the U.S. But the order is only temporary.

With a $53 billion endowment, Harvard has the means to weather federal funding losses that would cripple other institutions. But this new sanction strikes at the heart of its campus.

Already, the change is causing disarray, as thousands of students consider whether to transfer elsewhere or risk being in the country illegally. It could wipe out a quarter of the university’s total student body, while halving some of its graduate schools and threatening students who work as lab researchers and teaching assistants. Some sports teams would be left nearly empty.

Yet the future consequences pose the greatest threat. If the government’s action stands, Harvard would be banned from admitting new international students for at least two school years. Even if it regains its place as a global magnet, top students may shy away for fear of future government reprisals, the school said in its lawsuit.

In its court filing, Harvard listed some of its most notable alumni who enrolled as foreign students. The list includes Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia; Empress Masako of Japan; and many leaders of major corporations.

The university enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston.

Students in India and China — nations that send more students to the U.S. than any other — were awaiting what comes next. While foreigners set to graduate from Harvard next week can still do so, the remaining current students and those bound for the university in the fall were weighing other opportunities. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, for one, said Friday that it would welcome international students already at Harvard and those who have been admitted.

The action has dominated news in countries around the world, said Mike Henniger, president and CEO of Illume Student Advisory Services, a company that works with colleges in the U.S., Canada and Europe to recruit international students. He is currently traveling in Japan and awoke to the news Friday with dozens of emails from colleagues.

The reactions from the international community, he said, were incredulous: “’Unbelievable!’ ‘Oh My God!’ ‘Unreal!’”

For incoming freshmen who just got accepted to Harvard — and already committed — the timing could not be worse, but they are such strong students that any top university in the world would want to offer them a spot, he said.

“I think the bigger story is the students around the country that aren’t a Harvard student, the students that scraped by to get into a state university and are thinking: ‘Are we next?’” he said. “The Harvard kids are going to be OK. It’s more about the damage to the American education brand. The view of the U.S. being a less welcoming place for international students.”

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Gecker reported from San Francisco.

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