Thousands of foreign students at Harvard University were stuck in administrative limbo and looking for alternatives yesterday after US President Donald Trump’s administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enrol students from abroad.
Later in the day, a US judge temporarily blocked the move by the Trump administration, hours after Harvard sued it in Boston federal court, leaving the way ahead unclear.
Harvard currently has nearly 7,000 international students, representing about 27 per cent of its total enrolment.
Since taking office in January, Trump has assailed the so-called Ivy League universities, accusing them of fostering anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies.
While other universities would probably jump at the chance to get more Harvard-level students, taking in swathes of them is unlikely to be easy with only three months left until the start of the next academic year.
Michael Gritzbach, a German student who is studying for a master’s degree in public administration, described the move as a “dream turned into a nightmare”, especially for those who had saved up for years or had won scholarships.
He warned that even a court victory could not guarantee that foreign students would be able to continue to study at Harvard because “we do not know if the government will accept that, or if the whole situation will just take too long for us to react in time.”
A British student at Cambridge University who was due to start her master’s degree at Harvard’s School of Education in September did not think the Trump administration would actually go ahead with banning international students.
The student, who communicates regularly with other international students accepted into Harvard and asked not to be named to speak freely, said the main consensus was that “there is honestly nothing we can do ourselves right now”.
She said that if she were to go to Harvard as planned, she was concerned about being able to speak openly.
“It’s worrying everywhere, but especially on a student campus where the exchange of ideas is supposed to be celebrated. If I do end up coming to Harvard, going on campus, I know that I’ll be watched as an international student in certain ways.”
Speaking before the US judge’s intervention yesterday, international students said they were already facing delays on their US visa applications since Thursday.
One student was told by their visa interviewer that, while their documents were in order, the visa application was on hold for “additional administrative processing” due to recent developments, according to a private messaging group for foreign students seen by Reuters. They said they were told the process could take 60 days.
“Everything is in limbo right now and we’re just waiting and seeing,” they said.
Abdullah Shahid Sial, a Harvard student from Pakistan who is also co-president of its governing body for undergraduates, said some students were already looking at moving to other universities.
“We are trying to work with the university administration to offer active assistance to students who are willing (or are forced) to transfer to other universities – within and outside the US,” he said in an email.
Among those poised to benefit would be the universities from the so-called Russell Group in the UK that comprises 24 of its top higher education institutions if those students start looking elsewhere in the world. The Russell Group did not respond to a request for comment.
A British government-commissioned report in 2024 concluded that the UK should avoid restricting international student numbers or some universities might collapse.
Corinne Feuz, a spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Technology Institute, said the university expected to begin receiving applications quickly from students who have changed their minds about studying in the US.
“These recent measures against Harvard University could shift the situation and lead us to receive the best students globally,” Feuz said.
Switzerland’s ETH Zurich, the alma mater of physicist Albert Einstein, said that 22 ETH students could be affected by the changes to visa regulations.
Trinity College Dublin said it was too early to say whether there would be an influx of Harvard students due to the move.
But undergraduate applications from US students this year were up 16pc and those from postgraduates were up 64pc, said Catherine O’Mahony, a spokesperson for the university.
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