New early-applicant data from the Common App found that applications from Black, low-income, first-generation and rural potential students are all up compared to this point last year. However, international applications dipped, and the most selective institutions are experiencing the smallest application growth compared to other types of institutions. Applicants are also increasingly choosing to submit standardized test scores.
The Common App report, released Thursday, is the first in a series of monthly research briefs on college applicant trends typically released between November and March. The November brief showed that applicants, and applications, rose over all compared to this time last year, with notable growth among particular groups.
For example, applications from those who identified as Black or African American increased 16 percent and multiracial applicants rose 11 percent compared to the same time last application season. The report also found that applicants who identified as first-generation grew by 12 percent, while low-income applicants, who qualified for a Common App fee waiver, increased at more than twice the rate of other applicants. Rural applicants grew by 15 percent compared to last year, while thosefrom metropolitan areas grew only 6 percent.
But the number of international students applying dropped 9 percent compared to this point last year, driven by a 14 percent drop in applicants from India, which has historically been the second-biggest source of international applicants on the Common App platformafter China. Applicants from Asia broadly and from Africa also dropped significantly, 9 percent and 18 percent respectively, with a whopping 43 percent decline in applicants from Ghana. These trends suggest theTrump administration’s policies, including international student visa delays and denials, may be deterring students.
At a time when highly selective institutions are under new political pressures, the report found that colleges and universities with admit rates of 25 percent or below had the slowest application growth, at 4 percent. Applications to other types of institutions grew at two or three times that rate.
The return of standardized test requirements at some institutions is also driving more applicants to submit test scores. Notably, applications reporting scores rose 11 percent compared to this time last year. However, students who identify as underrepresented minorities or first-generation or who qualify for a Common App waiver were less likely to share their scores.
Donald Trump’s defunding of scientific research and proposed new charges on migrant labor will not be enough to deter international academics from heading to America, given the country’s unparalleled willingness to reward academic talent, Radenka Maric has argued.
Since February 2022, Maric has served as president of the University of Connecticut, a six-campus public research university with a $3.6 billion annual operating budget.
The Bosnian-born engineer is arguably one of the world’s most well-traveled university leaders, having worked in seven countries in a 30-year career, including Japan (where she earned her Ph.D. at Kyoto University and worked at Toyota’s material science research division), Canada (where she led the Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation at the National Research Council Canada), and Italy (where she was a visiting professor at Polytechnic University of Milan on a Fulbright scholarship).
“As someone born in Bosnia without a U.S. college degree, I would never have been made a university president in Japan, Italy or even Canada,” argued Maric, who studied at Belgrade University in Serbia, where she later worked as a junior scientist.
“I don’t have that traditional academic pedigree required by some countries. I didn’t study at Harvard—I have a ‘Japanese Harvard’ Ph.D., but who really cares about my Japanese degree—nor have I been a provost or dean at a big U.S. university,” she continued.
“But American universities don’t care if you studied in Italy or Serbia—they are only focused on excellence in science and innovation, which means ‘what is your h-index?,’ ‘where have you published?’ and ‘how many people have you brought with you on your journey?’” Maric said.
Despite uncertainty over federal science funding—with several national agencies facing cuts of about 50 percent to their budgets next year—the academic meritocracy promised by U.S. universities will continue to appeal to international researchers, Maric believes.
“That is what is powerful about American academia. As long as the American dream is there—that people like me can make it on their own merits—then America will be a magnet for talent. Crises will come and go,” she said.
The current uncertainty over funding has undoubtedly caused problems, Maric explained, while there are growing concerns over plans to charge a $100,000 fee for H-1B skilled worker visas, up from $7,000—a move that would make it much more difficult for U.S. universities to employ foreign Ph.D. students or postdocs.
On the likely damage of Trump’s recent higher education policies, Maric said, “It depends how long this lasts, but America has a great capacity to resituate itself very quickly. If you compare how the U.S. pivoted after the 2008 financial crisis, it came back much quicker than any other nation.”
Despite her evident enthusiasm for her adopted homeland, Maric said she was also inspired by her time in Japan. “This was the 1990s and I was the only woman doing a Ph.D. at Kyoto’s engineering school. I stayed for 12 years there, so it wasn’t just the language that I learned but the culture. There is an immense amount of care in how everything is done, so I applied this to my career by thinking, ‘how can I improve my skills?’ or ‘how can my research get better?’
“When I was in Japan, it was constantly stressed that there was no great science if it didn’t lead to great technology. And there is no great technology without a product, and there is no product without a market,” Maric explained of her approach to applied science—she worked in the field of battery technology for Toyota and later Panasonic before leaving to join a start-up in Atlanta.
“The most important thing about Japan is kata—a way of doing things in a particular way. There is a natural tendency to do things in a certain way and there is a desire to protect their culture, so eventually I knew I had to leave,” reflected Maric on her leap from Toyota to the U.S. start-up world.
Recruited to lead a battery fuel research group in Vancouver, Maric eventually headed to Connecticut—a state with long-established defense and manufacturing industries, in which the university now plays a crucial research role.
“Since 2010 the state has been recruiting faculty in renewable and environmental sustainability, including CO2 capture, so I’ve been part of this, but the history of manufacturing goes back to the mid-19th century when bicycle companies had their first factories in Connecticut,” Maric said.
Her university’s willingness to recruit someone with an eclectic CV—including stints in corporate R&D, academia and start-ups covering three continents—then promote them to the top job is a good example of why American academia will continue to thrive, despite the current challenges, Maric said.
“I am not a traditional person, but I was always a hard worker who sought to improve myself and bring people along with me whenever I could. Not many foreigners—whatever their expertise or experience—will become university presidents, but it is possible in America,” she said.
Picture this: you’ve crossed oceans, packed your suitcase, a dictionary (or maybe just Google Translate), your dreams, and a relentless drive to succeed in a US higher education setting. You’ve landed in the United States, ready for college life. But before you can even start worrying about your academic experience or how to navigate campus life and groceries you’re hit with a more personal challenge: “Will I sound awkward if I say this out loud?”
For many non-native English speakers, this is not just a fleeting thought. It’s a daily reality known as foreign language anxiety – “the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening, and learning.” It can limit and negatively impact a student’s ability to communicate, threaten self-confidence, and, over time, affect academic performance.
Why it matters more than we think
Foreign language anxiety is more than a minor inconvenience. International students must maintain full-time enrolment to keep their visa status. If foreign language anxiety leads to missed classes, delayed assignments, or low grades, the consequences can be severe — including losing that status and returning home without a degree.
Even though incoming students meet minimum language proficiency requirements, many have had little practice using English in real-life spontaneous situations. Passing a standardised test is one thing; responding to a professor’s question in front of a class of native speakers is another. This gap can lead to self-consciousness, fear, and avoidance behaviours that hinder academic and social success.
The three faces of language anxiety
Research shows that foreign language anxiety often takes three forms:
Fear of negative evaluation – Worrying about being judged for language mistakes, whether by professors or peers. Some students are comfortable in class but avoid informal conversations. Others avoid eye contact entirely to escape being called on.
Communication apprehension – Feeling uneasy about speaking in a foreign language, even for students who were confident communicators in their home country. Concerns about sounding less capable than native speakers can lead to silence in classroom discussions.
Test anxiety – Stress about organising and expressing ideas under time pressure in a second language. This is not just about knowing the material; it’s about performing under linguistic and cognitive strain.
These anxieties can actively block learning. When students focus on how they sound rather than what is being said, their ability to process information suffers.
The role of faculty and administrators
Faculty and administrators may underestimate how much their approach affects international students’ confidence. Being corrected for grammar in front of others is one of the most anxiety-provoking experiences students report. In contrast, giving students time to answer, offering feedback privately, and creating an environment where mistakes are treated as part of learning can significantly reduce foreign language anxiety.
When capable, motivated students are held back by the effects of foreign language anxiety, institutions risk losing both talent and the global perspectives these students offer
University administrators can also make a difference through peer mentoring programs, conversation workshops, and targeted support services. However, these resources are only effective if students are aware of them and feel comfortable using them.
Why this isn’t just a student problem
It’s easy to think of foreign language anxiety as a personal obstacle each student must overcome, but it has larger implications. International students bring global perspectives, enrich classroom discussions, and contribute to campus culture.
Their success is both a moral responsibility and an investment in the overall quality and strength of higher education. When capable, motivated students are held back by the effects of foreign language anxiety, institutions risk losing both talent and the global perspectives these students offer. Taking steps to reduce its impact benefits the entire academic community.
Moving forward
Addressing foreign language anxiety is not about lowering academic standards. It’s about giving students a fair chance to meet them by reducing unnecessary barriers. For students, this means practicing conversation in low anxiety provoking settings, seeking clarification when needed, and accepting that mistakes are a natural part of language learning. For faculty and staff, it means being intentional about communication, offering encouragement, and ensuring that resources are accessible and culturally responsive.
Foreign language anxiety is a shared challenge that can undermine even the most motivated and capable students. Often, the greatest hurdle of studying abroad is not mastering complex coursework, adjusting to life far from home, or navigating cultural differences – it is the moment a student must raise their hand, speak in a language that is not their own, and hope that their words are understood as intended.
Beyond academics, foreign language anxiety can affect the kinds of social and academic engagement that are essential for building leadership skills. Group work, class discussions, and participation in student organisations often require students to communicate ideas clearly, respond to feedback, and collaborate across cultures – the same skills needed to lead effectively in professional environments.
However, literature on foreign language anxiety suggests that students may hesitate to take on visible roles or avoid speaking in group settings altogether, limiting their ability to practice these skills. When students withdraw from such opportunities, they lose more than a chance to participate – they miss experiences that can shape confidence, decision-making, and the ability to work with diverse teams.
Understanding and addressing the impact of foreign language anxiety, therefore, is not only relevant for academic success but also for preparing graduates to step into leadership roles in a global context.
This latest plan is one of several ways the Trump administration is targeting international students.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | aapsky/iStock/Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
After months of speculation, the Department of Homeland Security publicly released its plans to limit how long international students can stay in the United States—a proposal that advocates say will only add to uncertainty and chaos that this group is already facing.
Currently, students can stay in the country as long as they are enrolled at a college or university. But the proposed rule released Wednesday would allow students to stay for the duration of their program, but no longer than four years. That isn’t enough time for students to complete a doctoral program, and it’s less time than the average student takes to complete a bachelor’s degree. Students who want to stay longer would have to seek authorization to extend their visa.
The first Trump administration tried to make this change, which would roll back at 1991 rule known as duration of status. However, the Biden administration withdrew the proposal. Officials said in a news release that setting a fixed time for students on visas to stay would curb what they call abuses and allow the government to better oversee these individuals. Additionally, officials alleged that the current policy incentivizes international students to “become ‘forever’ students,” who are “perpetually enrolled in higher education courses to remain in the U.S.”
DHS will take public comments on the proposal until Sept. 29. Before the agency can finalize the rule, it will have to review and respond to those comments.
Advocates for international students have been sounding the alarm about this plan since DHS first sought approval in June to make the proposal, and those warnings continued this week now that the plan is public. Changing the rule, they say, would be another hurdle for international students who want to come to the United States. These others include vetting students’ social media profiles and more scrutiny on current visa holders. Since President Trump took office, the State Department has revoked 6,000 student visas.
More than one million students from other countries enrolled in at a U.S. college or university in 2024, making up about 6 percent of the total student population. Experts predict the number of international students to drop off significantly this academic year.
Fanta Aw, executive director of NAFSA, the association of international educators, said in a statement that the DHS proposal is a “bad idea” and “a dangerous overreach by government into academia.”
“These changes will only serve to force aspiring students and scholars into a sea of administrative delays at best, and at worst, into unlawful presence status—leaving them vulnerable to punitive actions through no fault of their own,” Aw added.
Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, described the proposal in a statement as “another unnecessary and counterproductive action aimed against international students and scholars.”
“This proposed rule sends a message to talented individuals from around the world that their contributions are not valued in the United States,” she said. “This is not only detrimental to international students—it also weakens the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to attract top talent, diminishing our global competitiveness. International students, scholars, and exchange visitors contribute economically, intellectually, and culturally to American society. They drive innovation, create jobs, and advance groundbreaking research.”
Federal agencies say that research at American universities contributes to the country’s national security and colleges need to guard against foreign threats.
Warning American colleges and universities about increasing foreign threats to research, a group of federal intelligence agencies and the Education Department released new guidance this week outlining how the institutions can better protect themselves.
For example, the 40-page “Safeguarding Academia” bulletin in part encourages colleges and researchers to be transparent about who else is involved in a research project, noting that failing to disclose foreign collaborations could lead to sanctions. The agencies urged researchers to do their due diligence on any potential collaborators and outlined other cybersecurity best practices.
“Protecting the integrity of U.S. research—while fostering international collaboration—is critical to maintaining a robust and secure research ecosystem,” the bulletin states. “Striking this balance is essential to preserving academic freedom, safeguarding researchers’ lifework, and ensuring that innovation continues to thrive in a secure and principled manner.”
James Cangialosi, the acting director at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, added in a statement that while American colleges conduct research key to the country’s global competitiveness and national security, “foreign adversaries are increasingly exploiting the open and collaborative environment of U.S. academic institutions for their own gain.”
“Today’s bulletin highlights this evolving security threat and provides mitigation strategies that academic institutions can implement to better protect their research, their institutions, as well as their staff and students,” Cangialosi said. “With the new school year starting, it’s critical to get these materials in the hands of academic institutions now.”
For 67 years, the Department of Education has administered grants to universities to create centers devoted to foreign languages and area studies, a field focused on the study of the culture of a particular area or region. Now, those centers are under fire by the Trump administration, which has not released the funding the grantees expected to receive in July.
The grants support what are known as National Resource Centers, which were originally developed as a national security tool to help the U.S. increase its international expertise in the midst of the Cold War and the aftermath of Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik. Since then, their purpose has shifted with the times, now focusing not only on producing scholars but also on community outreach and collaboration with K–12 schools.
The office responsible for administering the grants—International and Foreign Language Education—was dissolved and its entire staff laid off as part of the March reduction in force at the Department of Education. But it seemed IFLE’s programs, which were authorized under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965, would live on; they were moved under the ED’s Office of Higher Education Programs, according to an internal communication shared with Inside Higher Ed at the time.
Since then, funding has come through “in fits and starts,” Halina Goldberg, the director of Indiana University’s Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute (REEI), told Inside Higher Ed in an email, though ultimately, the center received all its promised funds for fiscal year 2024–25. REEI was part of the first cohort of NRCs and has been continuously funded by the program since then.
But NRC directors, including Goldberg, are concerned the funds for the upcoming year—the final year of the program’s four-year cycle—may not come through, and that the Trump administration may be planning to demolish the program altogether. NRC leaders have received no notice from ED about whether or when the funds are coming, and some say their contacts at the department have expressed uncertainty about the program’s future.
The funding cuts appear to be caused by the Office of Management and Budget; records show that the agency has not approved appropriations for programs formerly housed in IFLE, including the NRC program, as well as the Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships, which fund scholarships and stipends for undergraduate and graduate students studying these disciplines. In total, about $85 million was appropriated for IFLE programs for FY 2025–26, including $60 million for NRCs and FLAS.
“We’re just kind of in this holding pattern to learn whether our funds are going to be released or not. And there is some time pressure, because if that fiscal year 2025 funding is not allocated by Sept. 30, which is when the fiscal year, the government fiscal year ends, then it’s gone and we’re without funding,” said Kasia Szremski, associate director for the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A Discipline in Crisis
NRC grant recipients worry about what the funding freeze and potential elimination of the program will mean for the disciplines of foreign language and area studies, which have already taken a beating in recent years; many colleges have eliminated such programs as cost-saving measures— including West Virginia University, which gutted nearly all of its language programs in 2023. More recently, the University of Chicago has paused admissions to all its humanities Ph.D. programs, including a slew of language programs, for the coming academic year.
Emanuel Rota, a professor in the Department of French and Italian at Urbana-Champaign who leads the university’s European Union Center, said he was already worried about the future of area studies and foreign language education, but “now I’m terribly scared.”
“I think this seems to be, at this point, slightly part of a trend to provincialize the United States in a way that is troubling for the future of this generation of students, who are, at this point, used to learning from other experiences around the world; knowing about ways of teaching, other ways of learning; establishing collaborations early on; and being able to be multicultural and multilinguistic like their peers around the world,” he said. “And all of a sudden they are told, ‘You only speak one language, you only know one culture and you only know your local environment, and you have to live with that.’”
It also comes amid efforts to quash other forms of cultural education and intercultural exchange. OMB also recently cut funding from a number of State Department exchange programs, according to Mark Overmann, executive director of the Alliance for International Exchange, which represents organizations that administer such programs.
Larger entities like the Fulbright program are being spared, he said, but the cuts include critical programming aiming at increasing STEM education access for girls around the world, fostering intercultural exchange with students in the Middle East, bolstering the study of foreign affairs in the U.S. and more.
International students and immigration broadly are also being targeted by the Trump administration, which has recently revoked thousands of student visas and increased barriers for overseas students studying in the U.S.
“I think international exchange programs, mobility, the presence of international students on our campuses have long been something that is supported in a bipartisan way, and that has been played out for decades in tangible ways,” Overmann said. “One would be increases in funding in both Democrat and Republican administrations, as well as Congresses. This is something we have seen transcend party lines and those across the political spectrum see that the mobility of our students, of our young professionals—both Americans going abroad and international students and professionals coming here—is something that supports our national security, our diplomatic interests, our influence around the world and our economy, down to very local levels.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has targeted NRCs. In 2018, during his first administration, ED criticized a Middle Eastern studies consortium at Duke University and the University of North Carolina for delivering programs it alleged had “little or no relevance to Title VI.” The programs under scrutiny included a conference about “Love and Desire in Modern Iran” and another focused on film criticism in the Middle East.
“It was probably a harbinger of what’s happening now,” said Brian Cwiek, a former IFLE program officer who lost his job when the office was dissolved. “I think that’s really where a lot of the same folks became intent on shutting down this same program.”
“Congress should wind down so-called ‘area studies’ programs at universities (Title VI of the HEA), which, although intended to serve American interests, sometimes fund programs that run counter to those interests,” Project 2025 reads. “In the meantime, the next Administration should promulgate a new regulation to require the Secretary of Education to allocate at least 40 percent of funding to international business programs that teach about free markets and economics and require institutions, faculty, and fellowship recipients to certify that they intend to further the stated statutory goals of serving American interests.”
Outreach at Risk
Although funding may still come through before the September cutoff date, some centers are already feeling the pressure.
At the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University, which is home to two National Resource Centers, Kathi Colen Peck was responsible for administering an NRC-funded program focused on providing faculty development to professors at community colleges in upstate New York. Although the center has funding sources outside of ED, the community college program was almost entirely funded by an NRC grant.
The program involved bringing international speakers—a dance instructor from Benin, for example—to give workshops in community college classrooms, as well as administering a fellowship for community college professors to create curricular projects.
Once it became clear this year’s funding wasn’t going to become available when expected, Peck was laid off and the partnerships with community colleges for the upcoming academic year had to be discontinued.
“The intention of [the outreach program] is really to sort of bridge resources and help the community college faculty have connections to the area studies expertise at, for example, Cornell. They’re able to leverage resources at Cornell where they wouldn’t necessarily have access to that in any other circumstances,” she said. “It’s really about trying to help the community college faculty internationalize their curricula.”
At other campuses, cultural events and educational programs that NRC leaders say are immensely valuable to their communities could be on the chopping block. Hilary V. Finchum-Sung, the executive director of the Association for Asian Studies, said that the University of Michigan’s Korean Studies center, for example, hosts a free Korean film series at an off-campus theater that is open to members of the public. It’s an opportunity for members of the Ann Arbor community to see a film they likely never would otherwise—and to glean something new about a culture that they might be unfamiliar with.
On the flip side, NRC programs can sometimes give immigrants a rare chance to connect with their culture on American soil. Szremski, of UIUC’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, said the center has partnered with local libraries to hold a Latin American Story Time Program for about 15 years. At these events, they read children’s stories in English and Spanish, but also in other Latin American languages including Portuguese, Guaraní, Q’anjob’al, and Quechua.
“This is particularly important in Champaign and Urbana, because even though we’re in central Illinois, we have a very large and very vibrant Latino community, many of whom are native speakers of Indigenous languages,” she said.
Once, after a Latin American Story Time event, a library worker once told her, an older woman “came up to her in tears because she was a native Guaraní speaker and had never thought [she would] hear her native language again, really, now that she was living in the United States.”
Cwiek noted that some faculty positions may also be at risk without NRC funding; though the grants usually cover only a small portion of a professor’s salary, that portion may be the difference that allows a college to offer certain world languages.
Scholarship Uncertainty
Students are also in imminent danger of losing scholarships due to the funding pause. Graduate students relying on Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships to fund their education in the new academic year still don’t know whether they will receive that money. Szremski said on Friday that one incoming fellow recently made the choice to withdraw from UIUC and instead study in Colombia for the upcoming academic year due to funding fears. With UIUC’s academic year beginning this week, others were forced to make the decision about whether to come to campus without knowing if they would receive the scholarships they’d been promised. Across the university’s NRCs, 53 students are awaiting FLAS funds.
Other universities are in a similar position. At Cornell, 18 students will be impacted if the money doesn’t come through, according to Ellen Lust, the director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies and a government professor.
These fellowships provide the cultural awareness, understanding and skills that the U.S. “has relied on to be a world leader. Students who benefited from NRC support have gone on to join the US Foreign Service, engage in international business, and educate new generations of global citizens. They have conducted international collaborations and research that that ultimately benefit Americans,” she wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed.
While the stipends allocated to undergraduate students are not as sizable as those for graduate students, Szremski said those recipients have told her they may have to take out private loans or start part-time jobs to fill the gap created by the missing FLAS money.
The future of these grants remains unclear. The Senate’s appropriations bill maintains funding for IFLE programs, so even if the funding doesn’t come through this year, the program may be able to resume the following year.
But if the NRC and FLAS programs are shuttered permanently, the effects will “be felt for generations to come,” wrote Lust.
“Our current and future students are the foreign service officers, intelligence analysts and CEOs of the future,” she wrote. “Within a generation, US citizens will be ill-equipped to live, work and lead in a global world. They will be outmatched by those from other countries, who speak multiple languages, understand diverse cultures and have built relationships across borders. Ultimately, these policies weaken the US’ global position and will make America less secure and prosperous.”
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Dive Brief:
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on Wednesday sued top Trump administration officials,alleging their attempts to deport student visa holders over speech have violated the constitutional right to free expression and due process.
The free speech advocacy organization filed the lawsuit on behalf of Stanford University’s independent student newspaper and two unnamed plaintiffs who entered the U.S. on student visas. It accuses the Trump administration of illegally deporting those it deems to have “anti-American or anti-Israel” views,creating a “pall of fear” that is “incompatible with American liberty.”
The lawsuit is asking a federal judge to bar U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio from making the plaintiffs eligible for deportation and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from initiating deportation proceedings based on their speech.
Dive Insight:
Beginning in March, the Trump administration began targeting international students studying at U.S. colleges, including but not limited those who had participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests or published commentary criticizing Israel. The wide-ranging campaign resulted in the federal government revoking at least 800 student visas by April 11.
Later that month, the Trump administration walked back hundreds of the visa revocations amid intense legal scrutiny. But it then published a policy expanding the authority of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to terminate educational visas.
Evidence of an international student’s failure to comply with the terms of their legal status — not proof or “clear and convincing evidence” — would be enough for ICE to revoke it, according to guidance from law firm Hunton. The new policy did not address the federal government’s practice of terminating students’ visas without notifying them — meaning they may still have their legal status pulled without them or their colleges being informed, the firm added.
Under the administration’s current policies, the plaintiffs face “an ongoing and credible threat” of student visa terminations and deportation proceedings, the lawsuit said.
The Trump administration has cited two provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act to justify these moves — one that allows Rubio to revoke student visas and another that allows him to determine a noncitizen is eligible for deportation if their statements or associations “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”
FIRE’s lawsuit alleges these provisions are unconstitutional when used to target free speech rights — which apply to all in the U.S., not just American citizens.
“Secretary Rubio and the Trump administration’s war against noncitizens’ freedom of speech is intended to send an unmistakable message: Watch what you say, or you could be next,” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiffs intend to seek permanent injunctive relief from the U.S. Supreme Court, the only court with the authority to “enjoin or restrain” aspects of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
At The Stanford Daily, student writers who are attending the university on a visa are turning down assignments related to the conflict in the Middle East over concerns their reporting would endanger their immigration status, the lawsuit alleges.
Other such reporters are requesting to have their published articles taken down or are quitting the newspaper altogetherout of fear of deportation.
Beyond the newsroom, international students have also largely stopped talking to the Daily’s staff since March, the lawsuit said. When they do, they often refuse to speak on the record, “particularly when it comes to discussing topics like Israel and Palestine,” it said.
“There’s real fear on campus and it reaches into the newsroom,” Greta Reich, editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, said in a statement. “The Daily is losing the voices of a significant portion of our student population.”
Both of the unnamed plaintiffs entered the U.S. on F-1 student visas, hold no criminal record, and have publicly voiced pro-Palestinian views. But both began self-censoring over “their rational concern about the ongoing danger of deportation for expression Secretary Rubio deems anti-American or anti-Israel,” the lawsuit alleges
One of the plaintiffs had been a member of her university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and criticized America’s relationship with Israel online. Her work led to her inclusion on Canary Mission, an anonymous website that “publishes the personal information of students, professors and organizations it deems ‘anti-Israel,’” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit cited testimony from Peter Hatch, assistant director of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations department,in which he told lawmakers that “most” of the student protesters DHS asked ICE to investigate came from Canary Mission’s website.
Among its posts, the website had published information on Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk,and Mohsen Mahdawiprior to the Trump administration detaining and attempting to deport them. All three current and former students have since been released on the orders of federal judges.
Aware of this environment, the plaintiff has “refrained from publishing and voicing her true opinions regarding Palestine and Israel” since March and deleted a social media account “to guard against retaliation for past expression.”
Likewise, the other unnamed plaintiff previously attended pro-Palestinian protests and published both pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel commentary. But he began self-censoring his work over fears of deportation, according to the lawsuit.
He also served as a teaching assistant at his college, and the course’s professor advised him to reconsider his advocacy related to Israel and Palestinians, as it might endanger his immigration status, the complaint said.
“No one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,” the lawsuit said. But the Trump administration, and Rubio in particular, are working to make free speech “a privilege contingent upon the whims of a federal bureaucrat,” it said.
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Since President Donald Trump retook office, the U.S. Department of Education has launched investigations into several high-profile colleges over their compliance with Section 117,a decades-old law that was largely ignored until 2018.
The law — part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Actin 1986 — requires colleges that receive federal financial assistance to disclose contracts and gifts from foreign sources worth $250,000 or more in a year to the U.S. Department of Education.
In late April, Trump signed an executive order charging U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to work with other executive agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, to open investigations and enforce Section 117.The order also explicitly ties compliance with Section 117 to eligibility for federal grant funding and directs McMahon to require colleges to disclose more specific details about their foreign gifts and contracts.
However, complying with the law is difficult and time-consuming for colleges given the challenges they face collecting the needed data and uploading it to the Education Department’s system, according to higher education experts. That means universities must take steps to ensure they are complying, such as dedicating a staff member to meet the law’s requirements, they said.
Failing to properly do so could put colleges in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and potentially cause them to miss out on federal grants, as higher education experts speculate the executive order will be used as another tool to target institutions’ funding.
“The Trump administration has it out for American higher education, particularly those they have branded elite institutions,” said Jeremy Bauer-Wolf,investigations manager on the higher education program at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “Section 117 is another cudgel for them.”
The history of Section 117
After Section 117 was enacted nearly 40 years ago over concerns about foreign donations to colleges, it was never really implemented by the Education Department and went largely ignored, said Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education. People just stopped thinking about the issue and didn’t pay attention to it, she said.
However, concerns in Congress grew in 2018 when then-Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Christopher Wray testifiedbefore a Senate panel that China was exploiting the open research and development environment in the U.S. and universities were naive to the threat.
Proactively monitoring Section 117 and investigating disclosures was seen at the time as a way to “mitigate malign and undue foreign influence,” a Congressional Research Service report released this past February stated.
Following the hearing, the first Trump administration “really started making a show of Section 117,” said Bauer-Wolf.
Between 2019 and2021, the Trump administration opened investigations into prominent institutions such as Harvard University, Georgetown University,Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. The administration was more focused on enforcing compliance through investigations than working with colleges to help them understand what the law required, said Spreitzer.
That had a “chilling impact on our institutions,” said Spreitzer. Colleges had a lot of questions about Section 117 reporting that went unanswered because they “were worried that if they called the Department of Education, they would be hit with an investigation.”
The investigations led colleges to report $6.5 billion in “previously undisclosed foreign funds,” according to Trump’s executive order.
When the Biden administration took over, Education Department officials moved enforcement of Section 117 from the Office of the General Counsel to Federal Student Aid. The Biden Education Department also closed several investigations launched under the Trump administration, and it did not open any new ones.
Trump, in his executive order, alleged the Biden administration “undid” the investigatory work completed during his first term. But those investigations had been going on for several years, so it’s unclear whether those probes should or should not have been closed, said Spreitzer.
Today’s enforcement landscape
Since retaking office, the Trump administration has opened Section 117 investigations into several colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, and it has reopened a probe into Harvard University. The Education Department said it needed to verify whether Harvard was complying with the law and with a December 2024 agreement that ended an investigation launched in February 2020 during Trump’s first term.
In the agreement, Harvard said it would submit amended disclosure reports for gifts and contracts received between 2014-2019. But when reopening the investigation, the Education Department said it believed Harvard made inaccurate disclosures, including for the amended reports.
“Unfortunately, our review indicated that Harvard has not been fully transparent or complete in its disclosures, which is both unacceptable and unlawful,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said when announcing the latest probe in April.
As part of its new investigation, the administration asked Harvard for information regarding foreign students who were expelled, including the research they conducted, and “all temporary researchers, scholars, students and faculty who are from or affiliated with foreign governments.”
It also asked Penn, among a host of other things, for all tax records since 2017. In addition, the department requested the names of contractors or staff who assisted international students or were involved in the university’s regulatory compliance with the federal Foreign Government Talent Recruitment Program — referring to foreign governments’ initiatives to recruit science and technology students and professionals.
“They are asking broader questions that go beyond the scope of Section 117,” said Spreitzer.
The threat of penalties, meanwhile, is all too real for universities on various fronts. The Trump administration has tried to compel universities to roll back their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and has paused or terminated federal grants to universities such as Harvard,Princeton University, Northwestern University and Cornell University as it investigates antisemitism and civil rights allegations on their campuses.
Bauer-Wolf said he fears the Section 117 executive order will be used as another “political tool, almost as a shortcut to yanking colleges’ funding.”
“It will be another avenue that the administration can claim that colleges are not following the law, when in fact, this is a law I don’t think anyone had any recognition or compliance with,” he said.
“I really think there are legitimate uses for Section 117,” said Bauer-Wolf, adding that it’s unfortunate the Trump administration and Republicans have “chosen to politicize it — instead of actually trying to find policy that could protect American interests and campuses.”
The new executive order also ties compliance with Section 117 to the False Claims Act — a federal law that penalizes people who knowingly submit false claims to the government.
It’s not clear how the Education Department will use the False Claims Act to enforce Section 117 against individual college officials or professors, said Matthew Kennison, a partner at Kelley Drye, a law firm that represents clients in government Investigations and enforcement proceedings.
But the prospect that the False Claims Act liability could be tied to Section 117 reporting “creates risks to institutions due to its ambiguity and potential broad reach,” said Anne Pifer, managing director of research at consulting firm Huron, which provides risk management and compliance services to higher ed institutions.
“While there is a high degree of uncertainty on the details of enforcement, institutions should expect increased oversight and scrutiny,” Pifer said.
Navigating the landscape
To comply with Section 117 requirements, colleges should follow the Education Department’s published guidance and other resources and, when necessary, seek more specific advice from the department, said Kennison.
But reporting foreign gifts and contracts to the federal government is difficult and time-consuming, said Spreitzer.
An FSA reporting portal allows institutions to upload their Section 117 disclosures. Yet, according to Spreitzer, there’s no way for an institution to upload a spreadsheet listing all of their gifts and contracts.
“They have to go in and enter each gift or contract individually,” said Spreitzer. “For a large institution, it can take several days.”
Then, if an institution makes a mistake, there’s no phone number to call at the Education Department, said Spreitzer. The Biden administration set up an email address, but it’s unclear if it is being closely monitored or responded to in a timely manner, she said.
“It will be another avenue that the administration can claim that colleges are not following the law.”
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Investigations manager, New America
An Education Department official disputed Spreitzer’s characterization. Several full-time career staffers continuously monitor the email and respond to institutions’ questions regarding Section 117 reports and reporting issues, the department official said.
Julie Hartman, an Education Department spokesperson, added in an email that the first Trump administration created the reporting portal in 2020 after years of “inadequate disclosures.” The Biden administration did not open any new Section 117 investigations, nor did it update the reporting website’s capabilities, she said.
“The Trump-McMahon Education Department is committed to reinvigorating Section 117 enforcement, including by improving the reporting portal in the coming months,” Hartman said.
A lot of large research institutions have carefully considered how to conduct their Section 117 reporting, Spreitzer said. But it requires “a whole campus effort to be aware of this requirement and to make sure you’re reporting that information twice per year,” Spreitzer said. She worries about the smaller, under-resourced institutions.
Those smaller institutions should designate a single point of contact to conduct the needed due diligence and make decisions on foreign sources that should be reported, Pifer said. And someone should be responsible for consolidating data sources and preparing and verifying the institution’s report, she said.
“Identifying a single point of conduct can minimize the need to train multiple offices on conducting complex reviews and help ensure data integrity,” Pifer said.
Such gifts or contracts are often found in university offices overseeing advancement and alumni relations, research, administration, procurement, bursars, and global affairs, Pifer added. Colleges should create a standard operating procedure or policy to identify and validate the sources of such gifts and contracts, and they should regularly review their gift acceptance and naming policies, she said.
But that work requires buy-in from the key stakeholders involved in collecting that data, she said.
“It is essential for institutions to establish sound practices and methodologies that will be robust and defensible in audits or investigations,” Pifer said.
Compliance through investigations?
The landscape for Section 117 compliance may only get tougher for colleges. The House recently passed a bill, called the Deterrent Act, that would add new reporting requirements to Section 117 and reduce the reporting threshold for foreign gifts and contracts from $250,000 to $50,000.
The bill would also require institutions to get a waiver before entering into a contract with a country “of concern,” which includes China and Russia.They would also have to report all gifts from countries of concern.
Currently before the Senate’s education committee, the bill would also introduce penalties for noncompliance, ranging from fines of $50,000 to losing federal financial aid.
Numerous higher education organizations have opposed the measure. including ACE, arguing it would significantly impede critical research activities and duplicate interagency efforts. The organizations, in a March 25 letter to House leaders, added the Education Department’s expanded data collection was “problematic” and wouldn’t ensure that “actual national security or foreign malign influence threats” are addressed.
“It is essential for institutions to establish sound practices and methodologies that will be robust and defensible in audits or investigations.”
Anne Pifer
Managing director of research, Huron
Brandy Shufutinsky, director of the education and national security program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative research institute, suggested that nonmonetary penalties be considered for colleges that don’t comply with Section 117.
For instance, they could be blocked from granting degrees, have their accreditation reviewed or see their nonprofit status be rolled back. Shufutinsky also recommended implementing a lower reporting threshold and being specific on which departments, professors or centers receive foreign funds and for what purpose.
Trump’s executive order on Section 117 is needed because “foreign funding in the US education system can contribute to foreign influence at those universities,” Shufutinsky said.
Still, the Trump administration’s focus on launching Section 117 investigations, instead of helping institutions with compliance, will make it harder for institutions to ask the Education Department whether they are actually reporting something correctly, said Spreitzer.
“The Trump administration seems to be again, trying to drive compliance through investigations,” said Spreitzer. “I think that chills our campuses from actually asking questions.”
Disclosure: Jeremy Bauer-Wolf was a reporter on Higher Ed Dive from 2019 to 2023.
In the latest volley in the Trump administration’s war with Harvard University, federal agencies told Harvard’s accreditor the university is violating antidiscrimination laws, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement will subpoena Harvard’s “records, communications, and other documents relevant to the enforcement of immigration laws since January 1, 2020.”
The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security announced these moves Wednesday in news releases replete with condemnations from cabinet officials. The pressure comes as Harvard still refuses to bow to all of the Trump administration’s demands from April, which include banning admission of international students “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.” In May, DHS tried to stop Harvard from enrolling international students by stripping it of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, but a judge has blocked that move.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement, “By allowing antisemitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers. The Department of Education expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices.” (Only the accreditor can find a college in violation of its policies.)
Trump officials said last week that Harvard is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry, including antisemitism. They notified that accrediting agency of the HHS Office for Civil Rights’ finding that Harvard is displaying “deliberate indifference” to discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students.
HHS’s Notice of Violation said multiple sources “present a grim reality of on-campus discrimination that is pervasive, persistent, and effectively unpunished.” Wednesday’s release from HHS said the investigation grew from a review of Harvard Medical School “based on reports of antisemitic incidents during its 2024 commencement ceremony,” into a review of the whole institution from Oct. 7, 2023, through the present.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “when an institution—no matter how prestigious—abandons its mission and fails to protect its students, it forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold. HHS and the Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination.”
The Trump administration also notified Columbia University’s accreditor after it concluded Columbia committed a similar violation of federal civil rights law. The accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, then told Columbia that its accreditation could be in jeopardy.
DHS’s subpoena announcement is the latest move in its targeting of Harvard over its international students, who comprise more than a quarter of its enrollment.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a release, “We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way. Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus.”
DHS didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed information on what specific records ICE is subpoenaing. It said in its release that “this comes after the university repeatedly refused past non-coercive requests to hand over the required information for its Student Visitor and Exchange Program [sic] certification.”
The release said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus” back in April. The release further said that other universities “should take note of Harvard’s actions, and the repercussions, when considering whether or not to comply with similar requests.”
Harvard pushed back in statements of its own Wednesday. It called the DHS subpoenas “unwarranted” but said it “will continue to cooperate with lawful requests and obligations.”
“The administration’s ongoing retaliatory actions come as Harvard continues to defend itself and its students, faculty, and staff against harmful government overreach aimed at dictating whom private universities can admit and hire, and what they can teach,” one Harvard statement said. “Harvard remains unwavering in its efforts to protect its community and its core principles against unfounded retribution by the federal government.”
If Harvard were to lose its accreditation, it would be cut off from federal student aid. In another statement, Harvard officials say they are complying with the New England Commission of Higher Education’s standards “maintaining its accreditation uninterrupted since its initial review in 1929.”
Neither the Trump administration nor Larry Schall, president of NECHE, provided the letter the administration wrote to the commission. Schall told Inside Higher Ed the commission will request a response from Harvard within 30 days and that, plus the results of the federal investigation, will be presented to the commission at its next regularly scheduled meeting, currently set for September.
“We have processes we follow,” Schall said. “We follow them whether it’s Harvard or some other institution … Our processes are consistent and actually directed by federal regulation.”
On June 4, 2025, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation suspending the entry of foreign nationals who seek to enter the United States to begin a course of study, conduct research or participate in an exchange visitor program at Harvard University. The proclamation invokes sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and is set to expire six months from the date of issuance unless extended.
This action follows the Department of Homeland Security’s May 22, 2025, announcement terminating Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification. That earlier DHS action is currently under a temporary restraining order issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Key Provisions
The proclamation suspends and limits entry for foreign nationals who seek to enter the United States on F, M or J visas in order to begin study or participate in a program at Harvard University.
The suspension applies only to new entrants seeking to begin a course of study or program at Harvard on or after the date of the proclamation.
The suspension does not apply to foreign nationals enrolled at other institutions, nor does it apply automatically to current Harvard students already in the United States.
The secretary of state may consider whether current Harvard students in F, M or J status should have their visas revoked under the Immigration and Nationality Act §221(i).
Exceptions may be granted if the secretary of state or secretary of homeland security determines that a particular individual’s entry would be in the national interest.
A review is required within 90 days to assess whether the suspension should be extended or modified.
The proclamation also directs federal agencies to consider additional operational steps, including potential limitations on Harvard’s continued participation in SEVP and the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS). It references recordkeeping and reporting obligations under existing regulations and states that these obligations are necessary to support national security and immigration enforcement.
CUPA-HR will monitor for additional updates on this and related developments.
