Recent disruptions to student visa processing could trigger a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment this fall, potentially costing the U.S. economy $7 billion and more than 60,000 jobs, according to a new analysis by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and JB International.
The preliminary projections, based on SEVIS and State Department data, paint a stark picture for higher education institutions that have come to rely heavily on international students for both revenue and academic diversity. The analysis predicts an overall 15% drop in international enrollment for the 2025-26 academic year, which would reverse years of steady growth in this critical sector.
“This analysis, the first to calculate the potential economic impact of fewer international students on cities and towns across the country, should serve as a clarion call to the State Department that it must act,” said Dr. Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA. “The immediate economic losses projected here are just the tip of the iceberg.”
The projected decline stems from a confluence of policy changes and administrative challenges that have created significant barriers for prospective international students:
Visa Interview Suspension: Between May 27 and June 18, 2025, student visa interviews were paused during the peak issuance season—precisely when students needed to secure visas for fall enrollment. When interviews resumed on June 18, consulates received a directive to implement new social media vetting protocols within five days, but with minimal guidance.
Appointment Bottlenecks: Reports indicate limited or no visa appointment availability in key countries including India, China, Nigeria, and Japan. India and China alone represent the top two sources of international students to the United States, while Nigeria ranks seventh and Japan 13th among sending countries.
Declining Visa Issuance: F-1 student visa issuance dropped 12% from January to April 2025 and plummeted 22% in May 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. While June 2025 data has not been published, the analysis suggests a possible 80-90% decrease based on the identified disruptions.
Travel Restrictions: A June 4, 2025 executive order imposed restrictions on nationals from 19 countries, with reports suggesting another 36 countries could be added. These restrictions alone threaten $3 billion in annual economic contributions and more than 25,000 American jobs.
The economic implications extend far beyond university campuses. International students contributed $46.1 billion to the U.S. economy in 2024-25 and supported nearly 400,000 jobs across various sectors including housing, dining, retail, and transportation.
The projected 15% enrollment decline would reduce international student economic contributions to $39.2 billion in 2025-26, down from an expected $46.1 billion. This represents not just a loss to individual institutions, but to entire communities that have built economic ecosystems around international education.
“Without significant recovery in visa issuance in July and August, up to 150,000 fewer students may arrive this fall,” the report warns, highlighting the narrow window remaining for policy corrections.
Beyond immediate economic impacts, education leaders worry about long-term consequences for American higher education’s global competitiveness. International students contribute to research innovation, provide diverse perspectives in classrooms, and often remain in the United States after graduation, filling critical roles in STEM fields and other high-demand sectors.
The timing is particularly concerning given increased competition from other English-speaking countries like Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, which have positioned themselves as more welcoming alternatives for international students.
To mitigate what NAFSA calls a “devastating outcome,” the organization is urging Congress to direct the State Department to take two immediate actions:
Provide expedited visa appointments and processing for all F-1 and M-1 students and J-1 exchange visitor visa applicants
Exempt F and M students as well as J exchange visitors from current travel restrictions affecting nationals from 19 countries, while maintaining required background checks and vetting
The report argues that these policy changes could help institutions avoid the projected enrollment cliff and preserve the economic benefits that international students bring to American communities.
For institutions planning fall enrollment, the report suggests the need for contingency planning and advocacy efforts to address visa processing challenges. With the traditional summer months representing the final opportunity for students to secure visas for fall enrollment, time is running short for policy interventions.
With a 22-page document and $221 million fine, Columbia University ended its months-long battle with the Trump administration that included accusations of civil rights violations, an accreditation review and a funding freeze that disrupted research and forced layoffs.
The settlement agreement, announced Wednesday night, will force changes to admissions, disciplinary processes and academic programs. In exchange, Columbia should get about $400 million in federal research funding back. The seemingly unprecedented deal will also see the federal government close investigations into alleged failures to police antisemitism on campus. (Despite the settlement, Columbia has not admitted to any allegations of wrongdoing but has acknowledged reforms were needed.)
Critics have decried the agreement as a concession to authoritarian demands imposed for political control, while supporters have argued reforms are necessary at Columbia after a pro-Palestinian encampment in spring 2024 and subsequent protests disrupted campus life.
Although Trump officials purportedly began their crusade against Columbia in an effort to address campus antisemitism, officials’ comments indicate that conservative politics also factored into the settlement.
“This is a monumental victory for conservatives who wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time because we had such far left-leaning professors,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a FOX Business interview following the settlement announcement.
The Trump administration has made clear that this agreement will serve as a roadmap for its dealings with other universities, including Harvard. Much of the agreement reflects what the administration had demanded of Columbia in March, but other provisions—such as a requirement to turn over admissions data and scrutinize international student enrollment—are new and reflect demands sent to other universities.
Here’s what is in the agreement and what it means for Columbia.
Funding Streams Restored
Columbia will see at least a partial restoration of federal research funds.
The federal government will restore grants terminated by the Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health. However, grants terminated by the Department of Education “and other terminated contracts are excluded from this provision,” according to the agreement.
Columbia will be eligible for future grants, contracts, and awards “without disfavored treatment.”
Columbia acting president Claire Shipman emphasized that the agreement was about much more than $400 million, telling CNN on Thursday that federal scrutiny imperiled $1.3 billion a year.
“There are many headlines about $400 million dollars. This is really access to billions of dollars in future funding. And it’s not just money for Columbia. I mean, this is about science. It’s about curing cancer. Cutting edge, boundary breaking science that actually benefits the country and humanity,” she said, emphasizing the deal “reset” Columbia’s relationship with the government.
Closure of Investigations
The agreement will close pending investigations or compliance reviews related to potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin. That includes a probe by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into the treatment of Jewish employees at Columbia. Of the $221 million settlement, $21 million will go toward the EEOC complaint.
However, the Trump administration noted in the agreement that the deal does not affect “in any way EEOC’s right to bring, process, investigate, litigate, or otherwise seek relief in any charge filed by individual charging parties or third parties that may later be filed against Columbia.”
Protest Restrictions
Columbia will maintain policies announced in March that deem protests inside of academic buildings and related spaces to be a “direct impediment” to the university’s academic mission.
“Such protests in academic buildings, and other places necessary for the conduct of University activities, are not acceptable under the Rules of University Conduct because of the likelihood of disrupting academic activities,” part of Columbia’s settlement with the federal government reads. All protest activity will be subject to university anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.
Prohibitions on masks announced in March will also remain in place.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said Columbia’s “unlawful encampments and demonstrations” deprived Jewish students of learning opportunities.
Mary Altaffer-Pool/Getty Images
Student Life Changes
The agreement codifies changes to disciplinary processes announced in March, such as placing the University Judicial Board under the Office of the Provost who reports to the president. Students previously served on the board, but now, it will be restricted to faculty and staff members.
The university president will make the final determinations on appeals cases.
Columbia will also add a student liaison “to further support Jewish life and the wellbeing of Jewish students on campus” who will advise administrations on issues such as antisemitism.
DEI Ban
Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, a frequent target of the Trump administration, are also included in the agreement. The deal bars Columbia from maintaining “programs that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotas, diversity targets, or similar efforts.”
Per the agreement, Columbia will be required to provide reports “summarizing its compliance with this obligation” and to ensure that university programs do not “promote unlawful DEI goals.”
Changes to Admissions
The agreement emphasizes merit-based admissions and bars Columbia from giving preference to applicants due to “race, color, or national origin.” It also prevents Columbia from using personal statements, diversity narratives or references to race “to introduce or justify discrimination.”
Columbia will also be required to submit admissions data to the federal government on both rejected and admitted students, including demographic details and standardized test scores.
International applicants at Columbia will also be subject to additional scrutiny with the agreement dictating that the university “undertake a comprehensive review of its international admissions processes and policies.” That review is designed to ensure those applicants are “asked questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States.”
Columbia is also required to provide details of “all disciplinary actions involving student visa-holders resulting in expulsions or suspensions, and arrest records that Columbia is aware of” to the extent that is permissible under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Columbia also agreed to examine its business practices and decrease its financial dependence on international students.
CHUYN/iStock Unreleased/Getty
Program Reviews
Maintaining a senior vice provost to provide greater administrative oversight of Middle East studies (and other regional programs), as initially announced in March, is also part of the agreement.
That official will conduct reviews of programs such as the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies; the Middle East Institute; and various other programs, according to the agreement. Those reviews are intended to ensure programs are “comprehensive and balanced” and include “all aspects of leadership and curriculum.”
But some faculty members have expressed skepticism about additional administrative scrutiny.
Michael Thaddeus, president of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, wrote in an emailed statement that the agreement poses threats to academic freedom at U.S. universities.
“Columbia’s insistence that it will not allow the government to interfere in appointments, admissions, or curriculum is welcome. Yet the creation of a monitor, charged with scrutinizing our admissions data and our Middle Eastern studies department, opens the door to just such interference,” Thaddeus said.
Resolution Monitor
As part of the deal, a third-party resolution monitor will police the agreement.
Bart Schwartz, co-founder of Guidepost Solutions and former Chief of the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, will serve in that role.
The agreement will allow the resolution monitor to access campus for assessment purposes.
Asked if Columbia believed the Trump administration would live up to its side of the agreement and if it had obtained any assurances, a university spokesperson did not provide a statement but instead pointed Inside Higher Ed to language in the agreement on dispute resolution.
That section noted opportunities for arbitration “if either party reasonably believes that the other is in violation of the terms of this agreement,” including reporting obligations outlined in the deal.
Hiring Requirements
The deal also places restrictions on university hiring processes.
Columbia’s agreement will bar the use of “personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity as a means to introduce or justify discriminatory practices in hiring or promotion.” Other unspecified “indirect methods or criteria that serve as a substitute for race conscious hiring or promotion practices” are also prohibited per the deal.
Columbia is required to submit data on hiring and promotion practices to the resolution monitor.
Codifying and Introducing Changes
While some elements of the agreement are new, other parts simply codify prior changes. For example, changes to disciplinary processes, and greater administrative oversight of Middle East studies (and other regional programs) already announced in March are now codified in the deal.
David Pozen, a Columbia law professor who has argued that “the agreement gives legal form to an extortion scheme,” noted while some of the deal was foreshadowed, other parts go beyond what was previously announced.
Some provisions “are novel and don’t track what was already said in March,” Pozen said. “There’s language, for example, about all-female locker rooms and sports teams in paragraph 20. I don’t believe that has any antecedent and just seems like a new anti-trans provision. So, it’s a mix of memorialization, extension and innovation in what Columbia has conceded.”
A record number of American students applied to college or university in the United Kingdom for fall 2025, according to recent data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the U.K.’s shared admission service. Some 7,930 U.S. undergraduates submitted applications, a year-over-year increase of nearly 14 percent.
UCAS’s data points to a trend among Americans who have expressed interest in emigrating after President Trump’s reelection in November. Some young Americans have elected to leave the U.S. to pursue a graduate degree in response to the Trump administration and its policies.
Conversely, U.S. institutions are projecting a decline in international student enrollment. Recent figures from NAFSA, the association of international educators, found that among 150 institutions, 78 percent anticipate a decline in undergraduate and graduate international students.
UCAS also reported record growth in applications from China, up 10 percent year-over-year to 33,870 applicants, as well as from Ireland (15 percent increase) and Nigeria (23 percent growth). Overall, international applications grew 2.2 percent year-over-year.
In the U.S., Trump said the federal government would revoke visas from Chinese nationals who have ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Chinese students make up about one-quarter of international student enrollment in the U.S.(229,718 students), second to only India.
NAFSA member institutions also reported that international students from Nigeria are experiencing challenges getting visa appointments to enter the U.S., which could signal further enrollment declines in that group. As of June 2025, 23,689 students from Nigeria have active SEVIS statuses, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.
The first Nobel Prize–winning scientist to join a White House cabinet, Steven Chu made history when he became Barack Obama’s energy secretary in 2009. But his move to Washington cost him an incredible $300 million.
“I joined the Nvidia board in 2004, before the company took off, but I had to sell my shares in 2009 when I joined government,” Chu said about his early involvement in the microchip firm that recently became the world’s most valuable company with a $4 trillion capitalization.
“At the time Nvidia was a small graphics company, but there were rules about conflict of interest so I had to sell,” he told Times Higher Education. With Nvidia’s stock rising 22,000 percent in the past decade alone, Chu’s stake would be worth $300 million, he said.
Nvidia’s astonishing rise has amazed the stock market in recent years, but Chu, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997, felt the company had huge promise when he joined.
“When Jenson Huang [Nvidia’s founder] told me about developing this high-level chip, I said, ‘If you do that, this computer will be at the heart of every supercomputer in the world.’ And he did it,” recalled Chu.
Sanguine about his lost wealth, Chu’s main takeaway from Nvidia is not his own misfortune. Instead, he worries that this American success story—co-created by a Taiwanese-born Stanford graduate, employing foreign-born engineering talent—might not have been able to happen today given the double whammy faced by U.S. academia: massive cuts to federal science budgets and an immigration crackdown deterring many students, particularly from China, from applying to U.S. institutions.
“Trump wants to cut science budgets by half or more and reduce the number of foreign postdocs—particularly from China,” explained Chu, speaking earlier this month at the annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in southern Germany.
“That’s a problem because if you go to any major research university, you’ll find about a third of researchers are East Asian.”
Chu’s own parents—born and educated in China before moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1940s—are a good example of how this brain gain has worked in America’s favor. “When the Communists took over, they couldn’t go back, but this is how America got many of its best scientists and engineers—as refugees from Germany, Italy and China.”
“That’s true for business, too—many of America’s captains of industry, from Jenson Huang to [ex-Intel boss] Andy Grove and Alexander Graham Bell, were immigrants,” he said.
Reflecting on how America “didn’t become a scientific superpower until World War II,” Chu said he believes the 1930s are instructive in other ways. “In this era America took what was innovative and applied it to industry. That allowed places like Ford to take what Volkswagen and Peugeot was doing but do it cheaper, but good enough to work,” he said.
“That is what China is doing to America now—for instance, taking the electric car and making it cheaper and now better. What we did to Europe, China and now Korea are doing to us,” he said.
Traditionally, the U.S. has been able to stay ahead thanks to its education system, in particular its generously funded world-leading research universities. With that system under attack, however, that advantage is weaker, he said. “Something magical happens at Ph.D. level in U.S. universities—we teach creativity. China is trying to learn this … and then apply it to their industrial sector. When they do, they will blow us away.”
Without America’s outstanding universities and with its foreign talent pool diminished, China’s path to global dominance will be immeasurably easier, predicted Chu. “Trump is perfectly willing to destroy institutions that any country in the world would give its eyeteeth for,” he said.
Unusually for a Nobel laureate, Chu’s prize did not mark the peak of his scientific achievements. He led a committee that recommended the creation of ARPA-E, a science agency that has funded more than $4 billion in battery, nanotech and other types of energy research since 2009, generating spin-out companies worth more than $22 billion.
Meanwhile, his time as energy secretary saw further investment, including the funding of an experimental $1 billion carbon-capture plant in Louisiana—a stark contrast to the “drill, baby, drill” priorities of the current administration. Obama also credited his expertise as a major reason why the cleanup after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010—the biggest oil spill in history—was successful.
And there are his brushes with some of the 21st century’s biggest tech companies, even if Nvidia wasn’t the only big fish he missed out on. “I knew [financier] Richard Blum, who said he could get me on the board of Apple— I didn’t say yes because I had a lot of nonprofit activities, but that was 2006, the year before the iPhone was launched,” he reflected.
Not that he thinks the money would have made much difference. “If I was worth a couple of hundred million dollars, would I have stopped doing science and just bought sports cars and houses? I hope not.”
In a paradoxical bid to “make America great again,” President Trump and congressional Republicans are pushing to restrict international research collaboration in U.S. higher education. The Department of Education is investigating Harvard University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Pennsylvania for potential violations of the Higher Education Act, which requires universities to report foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more.
At a time when the global race to develop cutting-edge technologies is accelerating, the U.S. should be expanding—not constraining—its international research partnerships.
Federal demands for foreign gift reporting kicked off in 1986, after Georgetown University received donations from Arab governments to establish its Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Policymakers worried about potential strings attached, such as influence over curricula and threats to free speech, resulting in legislation requiring universities to disclose foreign funding. Over time, however, compliance waned, and successive administrations allowed the law to fall into disuse.
That changed in 2019, when the Trump administration revived enforcement and began investigating universities for noncompliance, uncovering billions of dollars in unreported funding. The concern then, as now, was that a lack of transparency threatened academic independence and posed national security risks.
It is understandable to want to know if foreign governments are influencing American institutions. But is there good reason to think current rules are effective, or that stricter ones would be?
There is little evidence that decades of lax enforcement have led to significant harm. The Trump administration’s China Initiative, for example, sought to root out espionage in academia but instead cast a wide, indiscriminate net, leading to criminal charges against professors like Feng Tao, Anming Hu and Gang Chen based on questionable allegations. In each case, charges were ultimately dropped or the scientists were acquitted, but not before reputations were damaged and careers derailed. Of the 162 cases prosecuted by the Department of Justice under the China Initiative, only about 20 involved university researchers, and at least nine of these cases ended in dismissed charges or acquittals. The initiative illustrates how geopolitical anxiety can erode academic freedom and damage innocent collaborations for little gain.
Both the previous and current Trump administrations have scrutinized universities’ research, including on dual-use technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics systems and laser technology, arguing that they can be used to advance foreign governments’ (particularly China’s) military objectives. But politicians too often fail to acknowledge that most applications in these fields are nonmilitary, including autonomous vacuum cleaners, industrial robots and self-driving cars. Autonomous systems have been a long-standing area of global research, much of it geared toward civilian innovation. Moreover, federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, have implicitly supported this research through funding.
While reporting can be onerous, requiring universities to obtain federal waivers to collaborate with researchers from “foreign countries of concern” is more intrusive. So too are possibly biased social media screening of foreign students and travel bans that prevent entire populations from engaging with U.S. institutions. These policies move beyond transparency into gatekeeping, forcing universities to seek permission before working with researchers from countries like China, home to more than 1.4 billion people and a global leader in scientific research. Past historical lessons on how political tensions have been allowed to erode academic freedom do not need to be relearned.
Although the U.S. Department of Education claimed to improve the process for foreign gift reporting with a new portal in the first Trump administration, it increased the amount of information for colleges to report. The reporting process, while intended to enhance transparency, imposes bureaucratic costs on institutions.
Preserving open academic environments, where innovation can thrive, is not a liability, but a strategic advantage. Still, precautions should be taken. Sensitive research should be classified by the federal government. Companies partnering with universities should set clear terms about who can access proprietary projects. People who violate classification rules or contract terms should face consequences. But the default should be freedom, not prohibition.
To keep America great, it is essential to preserve the openness and intellectual freedom that define U.S. higher education and make it the best postsecondary system in the world, at least as indicated by its dominance of international rankings, share of Nobel laureates and attractiveness to international students. Open academic environments encourage innovation, foster critical thinking and enable researchers to explore cutting-edge fields—including those vital to national competitiveness.
If the U.S. is to maintain its position as a global leader in research, it must champion academic freedom, not restrict it.
Neal McCluskey is the director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, where Kayla Susalla is a research associate.
In 2001, conservative activist Grover Norquist declared that his goal was to shrink government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” More than two decades later, under the leadership of Secretary Linda McMahon, the U.S. Department of Education’s March 2025 reorganization delivers on that radical vision—not with fire and fury, but with vacancies, ambiguity, and quiet institutional collapse.
Vacant Seats, Hollow Power
With dozens of senior leadership roles left vacant, enforcement functions gutted, and policymaking handed over to political allies and industry insiders, the Department no longer resembles a federal agency tasked with protecting students and public investment. Instead, it has become a hollowed-out vessel primed for deregulation, privatization, and corporate exploitation.
The new organizational chart is littered with the word “VACANT.” From Chiefs of Staff and Deputy Assistant Secretaries to senior advisors in enforcement, civil rights, and postsecondary education, entire divisions have been effectively immobilized. The Office of Civil Rights is barely staffed at the top. The Rehabilitation Services Administration is leaderless. The General Counsel’s office lacks oversight in key regulatory areas. This is not streamlining—it is strategic self-sabotage.
Federal Student Aid (FSA), overseeing over $1.5 trillion in loans, is run by an acting chief. Critical offices such as the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) are fragmented, missing key leadership across multiple branches—especially those charged with accreditation, innovation, and borrower protections.
The Kent Controversy: A Symptom of Systemic Rot
The collapse of federal oversight is not only evident in the vacancies—it is also embodied in controversial political appointments. As education policy watchdog David Halperin has reported, the Trump administration’s nominee for Under Secretary of Education, Nicholas Kent, epitomizes the revolving door between the Department of Education and the for-profit college industry.
Kent’s career includes roles at Education Affiliates, which in 2015 paid $13 million to settle a Department of Justice case involving false claims for federal student aid, and later at Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), the lobbying group for the for-profit college sector. Under Kent’s policy leadership at CECU, the organization actively fought against borrower defense rules, gainful employment regulations, and other safeguards meant to protect students from exploitative educational institutions.
Despite this record, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee advanced Kent’s nomination on May 22, 2025, in a party-line 12–11 vote—without a hearing. HELP Ranking Member Bernie Sanders objected, saying, “In my view, we should not be confirming the former lobbyist that represented for-profit colleges.” Advocates, including Halperin and six education justice organizations, sent a letter to Chairman Bill Cassidy calling for public scrutiny of Kent’s background and the Trump administration’s destructive higher education agenda.
Among their concerns are the elimination of key enforcement staff and research arms at the Department, the cancellation of ongoing research contracts, the rollback of borrower defense and gainful employment protections, the $37 million fine reversal against Grand Canyon University for deceptive practices, and the Department’s silence on accreditation reform and oversight of predatory schools. These developments, the letter argued, mark a decisive return to the era of unchecked corporate education—where taxpayer dollars are funneled to dubious institutions and students are left with mountains of debt and worthless credentials.
“Mission Accomplished” for the Privatization Movement
This version of the Department of Education, stripped of its regulatory muscle and stocked with industry sympathizers, is not an accident. It’s the culmination of decades of libertarian, neoliberal, and religious-right agitation to disempower public education. The policy pipeline now flows directly from organizations like the Heritage Foundation and ALEC to appointed officials with deep ties to the industries they were once charged with policing.
Rather than serving the public, the department’s primary role now appears to be facilitating the private sector’s conquest of higher education—through deregulation, outsourcing, and the erosion of civil rights protections.
A Shrinking Federal Presence, an Expanding Crisis
The consequences are far-reaching. Marginalized students—Black, brown, low-income, first-generation, disabled—depend disproportionately on federal guarantees, oversight, and funding. As these protections recede, so too does their access to meaningful educational opportunity. Instead, they are increasingly funneled into high-debt, low-return programs or shut out entirely.
Meanwhile, the political vacuum left by this strategic dismantling is being filled by corporate actors, right-wing religious institutions, and profit-seeking “ed-tech” startups. The dream of public education as a democratic equalizer is being replaced by a market of extraction and exploitation.
The Dream Realized
Grover Norquist’s fantasy of drowning the government has now been partially fulfilled in the U.S. Department of Education. What remains is an agency in name only—a shell that no longer enforces its core mission. In the name of efficiency and deregulation, the department has abandoned millions of students and ceded its authority to those who view education as a commodity rather than a public right.
The danger now is not only what’s been lost, but what is being built in its place. The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to monitor the ongoing capture of education policy and fight for a system that serves students, not shareholders.
Sources:
U.S. Department of Education, Organizational Chart, March 17, 2025
David Halperin, Republic Report, “The Senate Shouldn’t Vote on Trump Higher Education Pick without a Hearing”
U.S. Department of Justice press releases on Education Affiliates
Politico Pro Education updates, May 2025
Senate HELP Committee voting record, May 22, 2025
Heritage Foundation and CECU policy recommendations
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the House Select Committee on the China opens its landmark hearing, “Authoritarians and Algorithms: Why U.S. AI Must Lead,” Committee leaders are unveiling new bipartisan legislation to confront the CCP’s growing exploitation of artificial intelligence.
Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) today announced the House introduction of the “No Adversarial AI Act”—bipartisan legislation also being championed in the Senate by Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Gary Peters (D-MI). The bill would prohibit U.S. executive agencies from acquiring or using artificial intelligence developed by companies tied to foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party. The House legislation is cosponsored by a bipartisan group of Select Committee members, including Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Darin LaHood (R-IL).
“We are in a new Cold War—and AI is the strategic technology at the center,” said Chairman Moolenaar.“The CCP doesn’t innovate—it steals, scales, and subverts. From IP theft and chip smuggling to embedding AI in surveillance and military platforms, the Chinese Communist Party is racing to weaponize this technology. We must draw a clear line: U.S. government systems cannot be powered by tools built to serve authoritarian interests.”
What the No Adversarial AI Act Does:
Creates a public list of AI systems developed by foreign adversaries, maintained and updated by the Federal Acquisition Security Council.
Prohibits executive agencies from acquiring or using adversary-developed AI—except in narrow cases such as research, counterterrorism, or mission-critical needs.
Establishes a delisting process for companies that can demonstrate they are free from foreign adversary control or influence.
“Artificial intelligence controlled by foreign adversaries poses a direct threat to our national security, our data, and our government operations,” said Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi. “We cannot allow hostile regimes to embed their code in our most sensitive systems. This bipartisan legislation will create a clear firewall between foreign adversary AI and the U.S. government, protecting our institutions and the American people. Chinese, Russian, and other adversary AI systems simply do not belong on government devices, and certainly shouldn’t be entrusted with government data.”
Senator Rick Scott said, “The Communist Chinese regime will use any means necessary to spy, steal, and undermine the United States, and as AI technology advances, we must do more to protect our national security and stop adversarial regimes from using technology against us. With clear evidence that China can have access to U.S. user data on AI systems, it’s absolutely insane for our own federal agencies to be using these dangerous platforms and subject our government to Beijing’s control. Our No Adversarial AI Act will stop this direct threat to our national security and keep the American government’s sensitive data out of enemy hands.”
The legislation marks a major action in the Select Committee’s AI campaign, which aims to secure U.S. AI supply chains, enforce robust export controls, and ensure American innovation does not fuel authoritarian surveillance or military systems abroad.
Today’s hearing and legislation continues the series of new proposals and messaging the Committee will roll out this summer to confront the CCP’s exploitation of U.S. innovation and prevent American technology from fueling Beijing’s AI ambitions.
The Trump administration’s financial and political attacks on higher education, as well as more pressing problems across the sector, mean it’s unlikely U.S. colleges will prioritize sustainability work in the near future.
While seven Canadian universities—including Queen’s University, McMaster University and the University of Alberta—ranked in the global top 50, Arizona State University, ranked joint sixth, is the only U.S.-based institution to crack the top 50. Three highly ranked U.S. colleges fell out of the global top 50 this year: Michigan State University is now at joint 61st, Penn State at joint 64th and Florida International University at joint 71st.
Western Sydney University in Australia topped the global ranking for the fourth year in a row.
THE—Inside Higher Ed’s parent company—ranked the sustainability efforts of 2,526 universities from 130 countries; 52 institutions from across the U.S. participated in the 2025 ranking, down from 58 in 2024.
Since 2019, THE has evaluated the performance of thousands of higher education institutions across the globe on the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Universities that want to participate in the rankings are required to submit information for SDG 17, Partnerships and Goals, and at least three other SDGs. How well an institution meets those goals is then evaluated across four broad categories: research, stewardship, outreach and teaching.
Phil Baty, chief global affairs officer for THE, described American universities’ “general lack of direct engagement with the SDGs” as “disappointing,” especially because the U.S. has some of the world’s strongest research universities. “I’d hope they can turn their greatest minds more overtly towards tackling the world’s most pressing and urgent challenges.”
Under Trump, SDGs May Be ‘More Risky’
Although the nation’s lackluster showing in the 2025 Impact Rankings is based on university data that predates the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration’s attacks on the sector and political stances suggest the country’s higher education institutions may only face more barriers to becoming global sustainability leaders.
In March, the Trump administration denounced the SDGs, which the U.N. created in 2015 during President Barack Obama’s administration with the aim of reaching them by 2030. The second Trump administration has also pulled out of other international sustainability initiatives, including the Paris Agreement on climate change, and moved to cut billions in funding for scientific research and social programs—including many focused on reducing social inequities, addressing climate change and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Bryan Alexander, a scholar who studies the future of higher education and author of 2023’s Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Age of Climate Crisis, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that even before the Trump administration’s denouncement of the SDGs, they’d failed to gain much traction among U.S. universities.
“When I mention SDGs in academic settings, I usually see blank faces and have to explain what they are,” he wrote, attributing the indifference to a stronger focus on other, seemingly more pressing matters plaguing higher education, such as financial instability. “That sense of institutional urgency, heightened by a steady stream of campuses closing, merging, or cutting programs and staff, looms large. In that context, the SDG goals look like noble but not essential, nice-to-haves rather than imperatives.”
According to Alexander, other deterrents to the sector launching a widespread commitment to sustainable development include faculty burnout, scarce resources, anti-expert animus, doubts from faculty and administrators that their efforts will make a difference, and anxiety about associated political risks.
And he expects all those problems to persist, if not worsen, in the coming years as Trump continues his assault on universities and pro-sustainability initiatives. “The anti-DEI campaign strikes directly at several SDGs,” Alexander wrote. “It will be harder for academics to win external support for any such work, from doing research to offering new academic programs, overhauling a campus power system to replacing vehicles with electric vehicles. It will appear to be politically even more risky.”
However, he said there are some less risky actions U.S. institutions can take to be more sustainable.
“First, renewable energy, especially solar, is simply cheaper than fossil fuels. Switching a campus’ power supply just makes financial sense,” he said. “Second, traditional-age undergraduates are much more interested in climate change and sustainable development than their elders, which means they will tend to be eager to take classes and study in programs along those lines.”
Walking a Fine Line
ASU also tops the global ranking for SDG 14: Life Below Water, which means it’s at the forefront of developing strategies that support the health and sustainability of aquatic ecosystems.
It launched one of the nation’s first schools of sustainability nearly 20 years ago, and although its main campus is located in the Arizona desert, ASU launched the School of Ocean Futures in 2024. The school connects research and teaching facilities in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans with research happening on its main campus in Tempe.
The school is one example of how universities can help to “restore balance within the global environment,” said Marc Campbell, ASU’s assistant vice president of sustainability and deputy chief sustainability officer.
“Fundamentally, the work of sustainability is about trying to be more efficient in the use of our resources and trying to protect what’s out there,” Campbell said. “A lot of people can support the foundational work of sustainability, but we need to unload some of the baggage that’s associated with the word and the discipline.”
Doing that, he said, will come from making a case for the economic and social value of investing in sustainable development initiatives.
“In any organization there are supporters and detractors. You have to figure out how to walk that fine line to get people supporting the greater good and recognizing what that is,” Campbell said.
“When we can do that more effectively across the board and build broader collaborative partnerships with other organizations that are focused on the same goals, then I think we can get past some of the [political] baggage.”
