Rift between colleges, govt drags US into deeper morass

The fight between US universities and the US government over its “reckless, cruel” visa rules for foreign students is victimizing Chinese students, a major source of revenue for the US education market, and seemingly dragging the country, which just saw confirmed COVID-19 cases surpass 3 million, into a deeper quagmire.

The policy, coming at a time when the US has thrown down the gauntlet to China by sending military aircraft frequently near China’s coastal regions and continuing to stick its nose into China’s internal affairs, caused great uncertainty to roughly 370,000 Chinese students who study in the country.

Some Chinese students reached by the Global Times on Thursday said that they appreciated their schools standing together with them, but such policies, along with the messedup battle against the pandemic in the US, has disappointed them and reinforced their decision to return to China after graduation.

With the hashtag “Student Ban” trending on social media platforms, the Trump administration’s visa regulations also appear to be affecting students who are planning to apply for US schools as several parents claimed that it would be probably better to send their children to other countries like Japan or Singapore.

When the two giants clash, small companies are getting caught in the crossfire, in a bitter joke, Chinese students described themselves as vic

tims of a “clash of two titans.” Insiders in the overseas study industry and experts slammed the Trump administration for using students as leverage to create a favorable atmosphere for his election in fall and suggested the students, when the new rules begin to take effect, sue the US colleges and government.

Go back home

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the Trump administration in federal court on Wednesday, seeking to stop the order that bars international students from staying in the country if they attend US universities that offer online courses during the pandemic.

With the number of Chinese students falling further due to restrictive student visa policies in the US and the coronavirus crisis that adds fuel to the fire, Esther Brimmer, the executive director and CEO of the Association of International Educators in the US, warned that the US risks losing global talent with new policies that hurt the country academically and economically.

“That could mean a significant hit to school budgets,” Bai Limin, an expert in charge of undergraduate program applications with ZMN International Education, a Beijing-based educational consulting agency, told the Global Times on Thursday.

“As the Trump administration controls immigration and customs, even if students receive offers from US colleges, they still cannot get to campus. One in three of my 500 students who are applying for US colleges this year have expressed their willingness to give up their offers and turn to other schools, or apply for a gap year,” Bai said.

Nancy, a Chinese student who got an offer from the University of Pennsylvania this year, said that “My joy of being admitted by my dream school was soon diluted by a slew of visa policies issued by the US government.”

“I went through rage and grief. I put so much effort in for so long, but ended up being a victim of the government’s ineptitude in curbing the viral spread; falling hostage to Washington’s crackdown towards my country,” said Nancy, who applied for a deferral of her offer and quit her job in Beijing.

“I used to think the power struggle between the two superpowers is far from me, but now I realize no one is immune to the ever-changing global landscape.” “Online classes for us is just like serving the cake but scrubbing the cream away.” “But after thinking about the Trump administration’s recent decisions, maybe the US is not that attractive after all,” she said.

Some students in the US shared with the Global Times that the longer they stay in the US, the more they feel what “fallen leaves return to their roots” means. The environment affected by these policies made them feel the dreariness and marginalization. They were unfairly scrutinized, stigmatized due to their Chinese ethnicity making them feel more patriotic than before they left.

“The Trump administration is anxious to resume work and production in a bid to create a favorable atmosphere for the upcoming election,” Shen Yi, director at the Research Center for Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University.

“International students are just purely political pawns,” he said.