President Donald Trump is calling on Harvard University to cap the number of foreign students it admits to around 15 percent, arguing that the prestigious Ivy League school should prioritize American students. Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Trump criticized Harvard’s current enrollment practices, noting that nearly 27 percent of its student body—about 7,000 students—are from abroad.
Trump’s remarks follow his administration’s bold move last week to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students, a decision driven by concerns over the school’s alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party and failure to provide DHS with records of foreign student misconduct. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem emphasized that universities do not have a “right” to enroll foreign students and accused Harvard of using international students as a cash cow to boost its multibillion-dollar endowment.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students,” Noem said, underscoring the need to hold elite schools accountable for fostering antisemitism and allowing anti-American activism on campus.
Harvard has sued the Trump administration over the visa cutoff, with an Obama-appointed judge, Allison Dale Burroughs, temporarily halting DHS’s enforcement action. Despite the legal setback, Trump continues to argue that foreign students crowd out qualified Americans from elite universities, pointing to the over two million foreign students who arrive in the U.S. each year.
With tuition and fees for foreign students at a premium, many elite institutions, including Harvard, rely heavily on this influx of international dollars, even as Americans face skyrocketing tuition costs and shrinking opportunities for admission. Trump’s call for a cap aims to reverse this trend and refocus the mission of America’s top schools on educating American citizens.
