Trump attack on Harvard students reverberates around the world

The Trump administration’s sudden move to bar foreign students at Harvard University is seen as dealing a blow to the US’s standing in business — and handing an advantage to elite rival colleges across the English-speaking world.

“I was shocked,” said Zheng Fang, a 1996 graduate of Harvard Business School whose Keywise Capital Management oversees about $2.5 billion in investments from Hong Kong. The decision “will not only jeopardize Harvard’s academic strength, but also hurt US competitiveness,” he added.

As part of an intensifying fight between the administration and college, the US revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, meaning foreign students can no longer attend. Harvard, which has educated scores of global leaders from finance to business, has already seen cuts to its federal funding as part of the tussle with Trump.

Warnings that the US is undercutting a crown jewel of its education system and economic dominance hit particularly hard in Asia, a region that provides the biggest share of foreign students to the nearly 400-year-old university.

Eu Wen Khoo, a Malaysian investment adviser who got his MBA from Harvard Business School in 2011 after working at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said the experience international students get at Harvard benefits them and the US: helping graduates start companies and move up the corporate ladder and American companies as they expand abroad.

“While a lot of businesses start in the states, for them to be trillion-dollar companies they need to go global,” he said. “If you don’t have the global market, your success is capped.” The recent decision to exclude foreign students, he said, is a “loss” for the US.

The list of global business leaders with Harvard degrees reflects the impact that the college — originally chartered as a religious school by the Massachusetts Bay Company with a £400 ($540, though dollars didn’t exist in 1636) investment — has had on international commerce.

They include Jane Fraser, the Scotland-born CEO of Wall Street giant Citigroup; Norway’s Helge Lund, the chairman of BP Plc. and Ratan Tata, former chairman of India’s Tata Group. Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan, executive chairman of Iberdrola SA; and Brazil’s Carlos Brito, ex-CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev are other notable alumni.

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who led Harvard as president from 2001-2006, said Trump’s move was a “devastating, self-inflicted wound” that would both damage America’s reputation and benefit the university systems of the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

“This is vicious, it is illegal, it is unwise, and it is very damaging,” Summers, also a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV, said late Thursday.

Even before the latest decision, some foreign students were starting to think twice. Arrivals entering on student visas to the US dropped to 41,800 in April — an 11% decrease compared to a year ago, according to government data posted on the International Trade Administration website. Arrivals from Asia — which make up half of the student arrivals for the month — posted one of the biggest falls.

“A Harvard devoid of its international student population—who comprise 27% of the student body—would suffer a profound diminishment of its global influence,” said Michal Galek-Aldridge, co-founder of Amsterdam-based college admissions consultancy Think Smart.

Nicole Mao, a Chinese entrepreneur and Harvard graduate who runs a startup, Tiger New Energy, in Bangladesh, said she expects the move by the Trump administration to have a chilling effect.

“Exclusion Signal”
“The mere signal of exclusion is damaging enough,” she said. “It creates fear and uncertainty for future international students.”

Harvard emailed its foreign students on Friday, saying it is “committed to maintaining our ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University and this nation.”

As students and alumni around the world digested the developments, much of the initial angst and frustration was channeled toward the slew of private — and often pricey — college advisory firms some parents count on to prepare their children to apply to elite US schools.

“Trump’s actions on Harvard University will further affect foreign students’ willingness to study in the US,” said Chase Wen, CEO of Study DIY Education Center in Taipei. Before Trump took office, Wen said 50% of the company’s revenue came from business related to the US. That proportion is expected to drop to 30% this year.

Visas are also getting harder to obtain, he added: “We had never encountered student visa rejections before, but two months ago, we just had our first case.”

Not all students were surprised at the news, saying the Trump administration’s pressure on universities and crackdown on immigration — legal and illegal — signaled that more severe measures could follow.

Arisa Kanokwatanawan, assistant director and head of counseling at EduSmith in Bangkok, said that she’s telling Thai students who want to study in the US to cast a broader net.

“Normally, students apply to at least 10 universities, but now we’re seeing more diversification with greater interest in the UK, Canada, and English-language programs across Asia,” she said.

Student Doubts
One Harvard Business School student from Korea, who asked not to be identified, said he isn’t sure at this point if he wants to attend and is wondering whether his MBA degree will be worth the stress of living in the US, given how quickly policies shift.

Similarly, a 19-year-old Singapore student, who is due to start at Harvard this fall, said she still has a valid offer of admission to a UK-based university but has to make a decision on whether to accept it by June 3. The student, who also asked not to be identified, said she’s holding out hope that a court injunction stops the Trump administration’s move.

“Not long ago, a US offer from an Ivy League school or MIT often trumped a place at Oxford or Cambridge,” said Sam Cox, client service director at London-based college consultancy A-List. “Today, we’re seeing those same students prioritize the UK, citing a more predictable and welcoming environment.”

In Shangai, Huini Gu is the founder of The ZoomIn Academy, which has about 100 students enrolled in its programs to help mostly young Chinese students wanting to take higher level education abroad — at a price that can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.

She said that many Chinese parents have shifted their behavior in recent years, considering the UK and Hong Kong as potential options for their children in addition to the US.

But in a sign that a US university education still has some resonance for the top 1%, she said China’s richest families remain focused on the US over other options.

“Parents who work for others — they’re not entrepreneurs or they’re not like deep pocketed people — they would definitely be terrified” by the Trump administration’s moves against Harvard, Gu said. But for her wealthiest clients, America is still their “top choice,” she said.

For now, many foreign students contacted by Bloomberg News said they are hunkering down and waiting to see what happens, hopeful there will be a breakthrough before they are due to return to the US for the start of classes in a couple months.

A US university education remains their dream, several of those current and incoming students said. It’s not clear how long that sentiment will last, according to Fuadi Pitsuwan, a 2013 graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School who teaches international relations at Thammasat University in Bangkok.

“The Trump Administration is undermining the very asset that has contributed to America’s influence and respect in the world: the openness of the American education system,” he said.