by Ben Whedon
The Trump administration on Monday touted data from the Financial Times should that the number of new foreign students in America had dropped by 17% over the prior year.
The Rapid Response 47 account posted a chart showing a considerable drop from the prior year. The post came amid backlash from President Donald Trump renewing his support for allowing Chinese students to study in the United States.
Since returning to office earlier this year, President Donald Trump has engaged in several high-profile rows with major institutions of higher education, largely over alleged antisemitism and bias against conservatives.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at one point suspended the ability of Harvard to receive student visas at all, leading to a court battle.
In August, the Trump administration said it would allow 600,000 Chinese students to study at American colleges. When asked about this proposal by Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Trump said American colleges would “go out of business” without these foreign students.
“You don’t want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country—destroy our entire university and college system—I don’t want to do that,” Trump said, according to Inside Higher Ed. He also claimed historically Black colleges and universities would “all be out of business.”
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
