Tensions rise on Pennsylvania campuses as Trump targets international students

President Donald Trump's administration has launched a multifront effort to reduce the number of international students studying at American colleges, leaving university leaders reeling and sending shock waves through their campuses.

In just the last week, the administration sought to bar international students from Harvard, paused student visa interviews, and promised to "aggressively" scrutinize Chinese students over whether they'll be permitted to study here.

The steady drumbeat comes as many new undergraduate and graduate students are trying to secure their visas for the fall semester.

"One of these actions creates a chilling effect," said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, whose membership of nearly 600 college leaders includes those from Rowan, Rutgers, Bryn Mawr, Penn, Haverford, and Swarthmore. "The confluence of all of these actions and situations really causes more general chaos."

Local campuses are hearing from panicked international students.

"Every one of these things has been piling up to cause the international students to have second thoughts about coming to the United States," said one high-level Philadelphia college administrator, who asked not to be named for fear his campus would be targeted by the Trump administration.

Students, he said, are asking: "'Can I still come? Will I still be able to apply for a visa?' And our current guidance is, 'We know what is in the press and that's all we know, so just hang on.'"

A student from the Middle East enrolled at Penn's law school said his visa is good for several more years, but the constant targeting of international students has affected him. He panics when he gets an email from Penn's international student office, he said, not knowing what message might come next.

"I constantly feel threatened," said the student, who requested anonymity because he feared being targeted. "I'm always anxious."

Philly colleges seek to reassure students

Temple University president John Fry, in a community message Thursday, said the school is "working to identify students who do not have their visas yet and are exploring potential solutions.

"This could include utilizing our Rome and Japan campuses as well as online courses."

Temple's enrollment, which stands at about 30,000, included 1,982 international students this spring semester.

The University of Pennsylvania, meanwhile, assured international students in an email Wednesday that it would "work flexibly with students who experience arrival delays due to visa processing." Administrators also emphasized that students who already have visa appointments should keep them.

"At this time, we understand that this pause does not affect visa appointments that have already been scheduled," they wrote.

Current students, many of whom have visas that extend through their expected graduations, also are not impacted by the pause.

University officials from Penn's global initiatives office last week called the Trump administration's attempts to ban international students from Harvard — part of a larger campaign to get the university to comply with its demands — "deeply troubling."

Harvard has sued over the action, and a U.S. District Court judge Thursday issued a preliminary injunction.

A potential hit to finances and enrollment

For Pennsylvania campuses, the loss of international students — many of whom pay full tuition and room and board — could be particularly problematic, especially at schools struggling to meet enrollment targets in a competitive sector. With more than 50,500 international students, the state has the sixth-highest number in the country, according to the Institute of International Education. New Jersey ranks 17th, with 23,225 international students.

At some campuses, international students make up a significant portion of the student body. At Penn, about a quarter of its total enrollment, or 6,903 students, were international in fall 2024, while at Swarthmore, it's 15%. At Rutgers, New Jersey's flagship university with 67,956 students, about 7,400 or 10.7% are international.

Wendy Cadge, president of Bryn Mawr College, where about 13% of undergraduates are international, underscored their importance "to the academic and cultural life of the college and, by extension, to the Philadelphia region and its economy.

"If we curtail the ability of international students to study in the U.S., we diminish the breadth of perspectives and potential for innovation that have made American higher education a beacon for the world."

International students contribute $2.1 billion in expenditures to Pennsylvania's economy annually and $939 million to New Jersey's economy, according to the institute.

But to the Trump administration, some of them pose threats and take seats away from American students.

"We have people who want to go to Harvard and other schools. They can't get in because we have foreign students there," Trump said Wednesday.

Targeting Chinese students

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the administration would revoke visas of Chinese students who have connections to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in "critical fields," though he didn't specify which ones.

Bethany Li, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a New York-based civil rights group, said Trump was "fueling a new red scare."

Banning Chinese students is not only unjust but does nothing to advance U.S. national security, she said. It does, however, put "the security and safety of Asian Americans at risk by stoking fear and hatred," she said.

China supplies the second-largest group of international students to the United States after India. Of the more than 1.1 million international students in the United States in 2023-24, nearly a quarter came from China. In Pennsylvania, China is the No. 1 home country for international students, accounting for about a third of international students, according to the international institute.

Earlier in the week, the administration announced it was pausing interviews for visas so it could more carefully scrutinize applicants' social media posts. It's not clear how long the pause might last.

But the timing is awful. About 70% of student visas issued last year came during the summer months, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Even before this week, colleges already were reporting fewer accepted international students were enrolling than in years past, the alliance's Feldblum said. Now, it's likely to get worse; one campus reported two-thirds of their incoming international students hadn't secured visa interviews yet, she said. For another, it was 60%.

She estimated that more than 100,000 students likely are impacted by the visa pause.

And IDP, one of the world's oldest international student recruitment organizations, reported that over the last six months, search demand for U.S. colleges, once at the top of the list, has fallen to second place behind the United Kingdom and is trending downward. The data tracks weekly search activity across the organization's 30 student websites for the four top study destinations and provides "near real-time insight into prospective student interest," the organization said.

"Clearly the state department needs to reverse its decision as swiftly as possible to avoid further disruption," Feldblum said. "We need to figure out how to address the damage and continue to assure prospective students that they are wanted and welcome here."

The Penn student who said he feels threatened even though his visa is good for several years said a friend, also from the Middle East, had been accepted to a graduate program at Harvard but had not obtained her visa and is now planning to defer.

"She's like, 'it's too late to figure out housing and all of that,'" said the student, who asked not to be identified for fear of being targeted.

He said he knows several students whose visas were revoked by the Trump administration earlier this year during a wider effort to target those involved in pro-Palestinian protests, but also ensnaring many others for reasons unknown. The students, who did not attend Penn, he said, returned to their countries. In the face of legal challenges, the federal government subsequently dropped that effort to revoke visas.

And some of his potentially new classmates at Penn who had not obtained their visas yet also expressed concern, he said, leaving him to wonder how many will show up in the fall.

Lorena Grundy, a Penn practice assistant professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, said she has talked to international students who are afraid to go home for fear they won't be able to return and others afraid to go to a conference in Canada for the same reason.

"I tell them I really value them," said Grundy, who noted she taught students from every continent except Antarctica last semester. "I really care about them and I will do whatever I can to help them continue to study here."

She said her classrooms are enhanced by international students.

"I learned a lot from them," she said. "The American students learned a lot from them. And they learned a lot from each other."

A Temple University international student, who also requested anonymity, said she has her visa and generally is not worried, given that she follows the rules.

"I'm just hoping that the government is working in a way that [is] keeping in mind the people in its country and respecting and considering everybody who is immigrating from their home country, risking every little that they have, to build a life here for the betterment of this country and their home country," she said.

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—Staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.