International Education under Trump 2.0, by Deborah Cohn
As a scholar who works on international education, the history of language education in the U.S., and cultural diplomacy, I aim to sketch out here some of the impacts of the Trump administration’s actions to date on international educational and exchange programs and on the support of modern language study. These cuts, in turn, have tremendous implications for U.S. cultural diplomacy, soft power and, ultimately, national security.
The Fulbright program originated by quite literally turning swords into ploughshares: at the end of WWII, Senator Fulbright sponsored an amendment to the Surplus Property Act that allowed surplus war material to be “sold” to the countries where the U.S. had left it, in exchange for various “intangible benefits,” including educational and cultural exchanges. Thus began a public diplomacy program that fostered mutual understanding and positive attitudes towards the U.S. by bringing international scholars to the nation and sending US citizens abroad. The current heads of state of Luxembourg, Spain, Haiti, and Bangladesh all were Fulbrighters, and many others preceded them (the ECA’s website on “Notable Fulbrighters” has been deleted). In February, the State Department literally abandoned its Fulbrighters — both thousands of US citizens abroad and over 7400 Fulbrighters in this country and—by “pausing” their monthly stipends with no notice, leaving many unable to pay their rent, food, and other expenses. (Many, but not all, had their funding restored by late March, if not their sense of security.) Not exactly a way of cultivating allies.
Title VI, which for over 65 years has provided support for studying and teaching modern languages and area studies through grants for Language Resource Centers, National Resource Centers, and Foreign Language and Area Studies programs, among others, originated as part of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 — which itself responded to concerns that the U.S. needed to strengthen its educational system in order to be able to keep up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances. Now under the Higher Education Act of 1965, Title VI and the Fulbright-Hays programs “have constituted the framework for building and expanding U.S. expertise and capacity for understanding other geographic world regions, cultures, peoples, and gaining advanced skills in less commonly taught languages.” According to the Department of Education’s own website, Title VI has “prepar[ed] highly qualified individuals with critical skills to meet U.S. national security, education, business, diplomatic, and economic competitiveness needs.” And yet, the Department’s Office of International and Foreign Language Education, which administers Title VI and numerous other programs, has in effect been shut down (this of course threatens many other aspects of U.S. education at all levels). The loss of this support will have a massive impact on the training of people with expertise in the history and cultures of other nations and regions. And, of course, canceling support for the study of critical languages — which are already understudied in the U.S. — and international studies now is like shooting national security in the foot. (As a side note, the mass layoffs at the Department of Education also shut down the Office of English Language Acquisition, which hamstrings states’ ability to help English learners gain proficiency--even as the president issued an executive order on March 1 declaring English the official language of the U.S.)
The State Department also terminated its grants to the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, claiming that the program’s initiatives were no longer in alignment “with agency priorities and national interest”—despite the fact that the program’s mission is to “promote mutual understanding by providing writers from every part of the world the necessary space … for creative work and collaboration in an intercultural setting.” And yet, the funding, which had come through the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs since the program was founded in 1967, originated as support that allowed international writers not just to study in but to get to know the U.S.; indeed, the first cohorts of grantees spent several days in meetings in Washington, D.C. en route to Iowa, which suggests that the State Department was laying the groundwork for shaping their perceptions of the U.S.
The dismantling of USAID and the freezing of its funds has had a massive impact within the U.S. as well as on the agency’s international partners and beneficiaries. Approximately $350 million of USAID’s budget were allocated to U.S. universities to pursue research in fields such as democratic governance, improving education abroad, and agricultural issues that also served to advance diplomatic goals.
It is also important to speak about what is happening to international students and scholars, in particular the visa revocations and other actions without due process or cause that have resulted in students literally being taken off the streets by ICE agents, told to self-deport, and more. Also, in March, Indiana University Bloomington, where I work, fired a distinguished — and tenured — professor of cybersecurity, Xiaofeng Wang, in violation of its own policies. (His wife was also fired without explanation, and their homes were searched by the FBI, though no charges seem to have been filed against them.) This incident has inspired terror and confusion among colleagues and students here and across the nation, and has sparked fears of a resurrection of the China Initiative implemented during Trump’s first term.
In the 2023/24 academic year, there were almost 884,000 international students enrolled in the U.S., with over 240,000 more pursuing optional practical training, but there are growing concerns that international students will choose not to study in the U.S. and that those here will seek to pursue their studies elsewhere. The loss of these students’ perspectives and presence hits our classrooms and community hard. The loss also impacts universities, many of which rely heavily on the enrollment of international students, who often pay full tuition. The economic well-being of the cities and states in which these students and their families live also suffers from the loss of revenue from their housing and food expenditures. As Catherine Rampell recently wrote: “In the 2022-2023 school year, more than three times as many international students were enrolled in the United States as there were American students studying abroad. Translated to cash: Our education-services trade surplus is larger than the trade surplus in the entire completed civilian aircraft sector.”
In short, then, many of the programs and initiatives that the Trump administration is threatening originated as efforts to strengthen the U.S. national interest. Over the years, they have continued to foster mutual understanding, produce critical research, and train scholars in languages and other fields that benefit the U.S. economy and national security alike. Also, the budgets of the aforementioned programs amount to a very small fraction of the total U.S. budget, with all punching well above their weight. In other words, apart from the incalculable damage that the destruction of these initiatives does, canceling them makes no sense whatsoever in terms of the government’s own supposed priorities.
I am grateful to LaNitra Berger, the former president of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, for stressing the importance of discussing international students and their visa revocations in this piece.
Deborah Cohn is Provost Professor, Indiana University Bloomington.