Let's Look More Closely At Foreign Stiudents At Harvard

I've noted here that a feature of Trump's strategy is to take away multiple legs of any stool on which a problem sits. The Harvard problem -- which is shorthand for the uber-endowed prestigious university problem in general -- sits on multiple stools, each with multiple legs. The international student problem is one of those stools, and Trump is busily taking away several legs of that stool.

One leg of this stool is the cash cow that international students represent to US universities. According to Karin Fischer, who covers international education for the Chronicle of Higher Education,

Typically, international students and out-of-state students pay more than students who go to college in their own home states, sometimes two or three times as much. International students may also pay special fees for things like visa processing and English language exams. . . . about 80% of international students pay their own way, whether from their own families or by borrowing money.

. . . More than 80% of [undergraduate students] are saying that either their personal or family money, or money that they and their families are borrowing, is what they use as the primary source of funding. I mean, you look at some of these families; some of them are quite wealthy, and some of them are newly middle class. One of the big factors in the real growth of international students has been the boom in the Chinese middle class, for example.

It's also worth pointing out that most of these students aren't European. Europe has its own highly prestigious universities, and Harvard tends to be looked down on. The families Ms Fischer characterizes as "quite wealthy" are in the ruling class of third-world countries, for whom Harvard degrees are social status markers that accompany Rolls Royces, palaces, and private jets.

Harvard, like all other US universities, has come to rely on foreign students, because they're highly profitable. This is another leg of the stool that the Trump administration is threatening to take away -- not just grant money, but the ability to recruit high profit-margin international students at all:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, the latest broadside from the Trump administration against the Ivy League school.

Noem ordered the university to submit records on what she says is “illegal and violent activities” from international students by April 30, or Harvard would suffer the “immediate loss of Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification,” according to a DHS press release released late Wednesday. The certification program is what allows institutions to enroll foreign students.

My surmise -- I haven't seen direct accounts that describe this -- is that many of Harvard's international students are highly privileged in their home countries and expect to be catered to at Harvard. The ruling classses in their home countries, of which they are members, are likely Mahometan, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel. Because they represent major money to Harvard -- in addition to paying full fees, the families are likely major donors as well, to ensure the continued admission of their offspring -- Harvard treats them with kid gloves.

If Harvard is indulging these students to the extent of looking the other way over anti-Semitic demonstrations and harassment of Jewish students, the Trump administration has a right to step in. And if Harvard doesn't cooperate in reporting and working to minimize these problems, the Trump administration will simply withdraw Harvard's ability to enroll such students. That's just one leg of the stool.

But at the same link, there's a remarkably revealing figure:

International students currently make up roughly 27 percent of Harvard’s total enrollment, according to university data from the 2024-25 academic year.

Let's go back to Jerome Karabel's paradigm of Ivy admissions "baskets". This is saying that international students, who are typically just one "basket" among at least a couple dozen, including legacies, children of major donors, preppies, athletes, and DEI (however that category may yet be fudged) that have specific percentages allocated in each year's admissions process. Of all these "baskets", only a few are made up of applicants from US public schools competitively selected based on GPA, test scores, and extracurriculars, especially from Northeastern suburbs.

And the exact percentages of each have always been a closely held secret, while the Ivies assiduously cultivate the public perception that their admissions process is highly competitive and merit-based. Yet all of a sudden, we have a strong indication that one of the non-competitive "baskets", foreign students who buy their way in, is 27%. That's more than a quarter. We simply don't know what percentage each of the other non-competitive "baskets" represents.

But if we know that one non-competitive "basket" is 27%, then we only need to find one or more other "baskets" to make up another 23% and bring the total of applicants that aren't selected on a competitive basis up to half. My own experience suggests that the number of preppies at an Ivy, at least when I was an undergraduate, was non-trivial; I don't think 20% is unreasonable as an estimate, and it could well be more (UPDATE: this estimate is 35%.). The same applies to legacies. This leaves out athletes, children of major donors, and DEI, however this category may still be weaseled and fudged.

It's also worth noting that Ivy schools have programs like fencing, rowing, and lacrosse that aren't available in most public schools, which tips the balance for athletes toward other applicants with privileged backgrounds. I think it's not unreasonable at all to estimate that the number of "baskets" for admissions categories that favor applicants from highly privileged backgrounds outside any general competition, even if there's some overlap, covers well over half of an Ivy entering class.

Looking back, I could certainly see why I was so puzzled that so many of my Ivy classmates just didn't seem very smart, when the whole assumption under which I found myself in that admissions rat race was that I was competing against people who were supposed to be just as smart as I was. I'm sure the dean of freshmen to whom I took my perplexity knew much more than he felt able to explain to me. But if Trump pulls this particular leg out from under the stool, we may learn much more.