These three below Washington Post article concerning the Trump Administration clamping down on foreign students attending American universities appeared in the WaPo 28-30 May 2025, and evolved from a story lamenting the loss of revenue foreign students bring to colleges to finally recognizing that some of these students, especially the Chinese, pose a serious National Security risk. Most of the Chinese students major in engineering, computer science and other hard sciences with direct application to military and economic uses. What they learn here they bringing back to China and apply to either advancing military weapons systems or infringing on our patents and copyrights so they can wage economic war on us in World markets. By avoiding research and development costs, the Chinese can and do undersell us by copying and selling our proprietary products cheaper than we can even produce let alone develop them.
It’s possibly just a coincident but after I
posted my below comment in the comments section of the first article is when the
focus slowly shifted from purely the colleges’ economic loss to recognizing
that there was a national security and national economic component to the loss.
Although I had previously posted similar comments, this is the first time my
concerns have appeared to gain any traction.
Although I only posted the headline and a few snippets
from each article, I did include a link to the entire WaPo article and it is
well worthwhile reading each of them. After reading the articles, read my
comment that I hope had some role in evolving the story from one of economics on
colleges to one of National Security.
Here’s how much international students
contribute to the U.S. economy
International students
contributed $44 billion to the U.S. economy in the 2023-2024 school year. Their
loss could hurt more than just universities’ bottom line.
By Vivian
Ho 28 May 2025
As the Trump administration pauses new student visas in
its battle to force change at
the nation’s elite universities, economists warn that the loss of international
students would affect not just the schools that depend on their tuition but
local and state economies, as well.
The more than 1.1 million international
students who studied in the United States last year contributed nearly $44
billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 school year, according to
nonpartisan nonprofit NAFSA, the Association of International Educators —
from $10 million in Alaska to more than $6 billion in California — and
supported more than 378,000 jobs.
“Students don’t just spend money paying
tuition fees,” Nicholas Barr, a professor at the London School of Economics,
said in an interview. “They pay rent, they go to restaurants, they travel.”
Trump
administration to crack down on Chinese visas, Rubio says
He said the State and Homeland Security
departments will work to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students in the
United States, “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party
or studying in critical fields.”
By David Nakamura and Katrina
Northrop
29 May 2025
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday
announced plans to crack down on Chinese holders of student visas and ramp up
scrutiny of new visa applicants from China and Hong Kong, escalating the Trump
administration’s confrontational approach to Beijing.
He did not specify which areas of study would be targeted —
of the 277,398 Chinese students at U.S. universities last year, more than
110,000 were pursuing math, engineering, science and technology
courses ….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/05/28/chinese-visas-applicants-trump-rubio/
Trump’s visa clampdown plunges 275,000 Chinese students into uncertainty
Chinese students make
up nearly up nearly a quarter of all international students in the United
States. Here’s who they are and what they’re studying.
By Kim Bellware and Angie Orellana
Hernandez
30 May 2025
More than a quarter-million Chinese students
attending college in the United States saw their futures plunged into
uncertainty Wednesday when the Trump administration announced an aggressive
clampdown on student visa holders from that country.
The
majority of Chinese students study subjects related to science, technology,
engineering and mathematics, according to the Institute
of International Education. For the 2023-2024 academic year, nearly a quarter of students were
pursuing math and computer science, while 17 percent were majoring in a form of
engineering.
Nearly
half of Chinese students in the U.S. — 44.3 percent — are seeking graduate
degrees, while about 32 percent are enrolled as undergraduates, the IIE data
showed. About 22 percent of students are participating in optional practical
training, which offers temporary employment directly related to an F-1 visa
holder’s field of study.
The IIE estimated
that Chinese students in the U.S. have an economic impact of $14.2 billion. Its
report listed New York, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Illinois as
the most popular landing spots for the students.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/05/29/chinese-students-data-visa/
The
Old Colonel’s Take on Chinese Students Attending US Universities and the
National Security Implications
I’ve been posting this below in the past and
I’m absolutely delighted that the WaPo is finally echoing my concerns:
In the lead up to World War II the United States
sold Japan huge amounts of iron so in essence we supplied them with the
materials that enabled them to attack us. We are now in a similar situation
with Communist China but instead of iron, we are selling them the intellectual
capital to shoot back at us and with which to defeat us both economically and
militarily. In the 2023-24 school year over 277,000 Chinese nationals were
enrolled in U.S. universities, representing roughly 25% of all international
students and they are mostly attending our top universities mostly majoring in
engineering and computer science. The top universities with significant Red
Chinese student populations include Columbia University, Cornell University,
the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the University of Southern
California, University of California Los Angeles, Michigan State University and
Ohio State University.
What the first article is touting as an
economic negative is really a National Security positive. Although by reducing
the number of foreign students attending, colleges may lose the tuition they
would have paid but that money is a pittance compared to the intellectual “ammunition”
they are taking away in knowledge. It is what these Chinese students learn here
and bring back home that will someday enable China to challenge us both
economically and militarily. Instead of us selling them the “iron” to defeat us
on the battlefield, we are selling them what is now our intellectual “iron” so
they can defeat us on both the economic and military battlefields of the future.
Appears we have forgotten the lessons we learned 80+ years ago.
