Shutting Chinese out of US universities could hurt America more than China

It was as if the 20-year-old George Washington University student from Thailand had simply walked out of her apartment and disappeared.

And in a sense, she had.

The young Thai Chinese had travelled back home to Bangkok when her parents decided that with the pandemic, it was probably safer to stay home. The studio lease was cancelled and friends were roped in to send some things back to her - the Gucci bag and the pictures topped the list - before handing the flat back to the owner.

Across the United States, variations of this theme have become common. And colleges and universities, which depend on full-fee paying foreigners for a significant chunk of their revenue, are debating their options should those students stop coming.

With classes moving online, questions have arisen about the value of the experience for overseas students, complicating matters further for higher education institutions, which could charge well over US$70,000 (S$100,000) a year. There has been a flurry of lawsuits against colleges by undergraduates demanding partial tuition, room-and-board and fee refunds after they shut down.

This month, American University (in Washington DC) student Maaz Qureshi filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of himself and his classmates, arguing that while closing campus during the pandemic was the right decision, it deprived them of the "benefits of in-person instruction, access to campus facilities, student activities, and other benefits and services in exchange for which they had already paid fees and tuition."

According to the 2019 Open Doors report on International Educational Exchange, there were 1.09 million international students in the US in the 2018/19 academic year, contributing US$44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018. Chinese students accounted for roughly 34 per cent of the total, contributing more than any other foreign student group.

But the Covid-19 pandemic is only the latest blow to the dimming prospects of foreign students in America - especially those from China.

Already in the summer of 2019, student counsellors and parents in China were having second thoughts about Chinese students pursuing higher education opportunities in America as China-US relations bumped along in the middle of a high-pitched trade war and rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the US.

In October 2019, Mr Xiaofeng Wan, associate dean of admission and coordinator of international recruitment at Amherst College, wrote in the Inside Higher Ed journal about the results of a survey of 54 school-based college counselors in China. About 85 per cent indicated that the biggest concern of Chinese parents was US President Donald Trump's unpredictable policies toward Chinese students.

"Seventy-eight per cent pointed to safety; 65 per cent to the uncertainty of remaining in the US for a work experience after graduation; and another 65 per cent indicated fear of visa denial or deportation after arrival," he wrote.

Eighty-seven per cent of high school college counsellors in China reported that students and parents were reconsidering plans for study in the US, he wrote.

The US had by then started cancelling or denying visas to Chinese scholars. In April 2019, the US began extra screening of students and shortened the length of visas issued in aviation, robotics and advanced manufacturing from a maximum of five years to one year.

"Particularly sensitive are disciplines that coincide with China's "Made in China 2025" plan, a state initiative to become the global leader in fields like robotics, semiconductors and aviation," National Public Radio (NPR) reported.

Last month's order suspending the issuance of Lawful Permanent Resident permits (green cards) has left international students at US colleges and universities even more uncertain.

The apprehension deepened when on April 27, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf indicated in a radio interview that Optional Practical Training (OPT) visas were the administration's next target.

The OPT allows a student to work for a while after graduating and is considered to be the pathway to US residency.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, China hawks are hollering for more restrictions. Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton is lobbying for an outright ban on Chinese students studying in technical fields in America.

While this may inconvenience Chinese students, it is American colleges and universities and the US as a whole that will experience short and long-term negative consequences.

"I do think everybody wants to get on the "I'm tough on China, so give me something to be tough on China" bandwagon, but they're not actually thinking very strategically," Dr James Carafano, director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told The Straits Times.

"Let's say you want to ban Chinese students in the United States. Okay, great. It's some… enormous amount of money. What are you going to do about that?"

Dr Glenn Altschuler, professor of American studies at Cornell University, told The Straits Times that "many institutions which depend entirely or almost entirely on tuition (fees) would perhaps even become insolvent if these students don't come".

"Another concern, is that in many fields, doctoral students from other countries dominate the field of graduate and post-doctorals, and... if they were not to come, this has academic consequences, because many of them are superb students.

"There is pretty much a consensus among colleges and universities that shutting out international students is not a good policy simply as a foreign policy, but also has profound implications for institutions of higher education."

He added: "Certainly that concern has been represented in Washington; whether that carries the day is of course another question."