Rubio’s new Chinese Exclusion Act: the Trump administration just went after Chinese students

On May 28th the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted this on X/Twitter:

The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.

The State Department soon followed that with a formal statement on its website, slightly expanding on the original:

Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.

Let me explain why this might be a big deal for higher education and why it’s also very bad.  I will also try to be as calm as possible although my fingers are shaking and my mind is something like this:

To explain: American colleges and universities enroll a large number of international students, around 1.1 million now.  We do this in part for global and multicultural reasons. We also do this for financial reasons.  While a lot of American students do not pay full tuition price, most international students do.  As economist Noah Smith puts it, “International students subsidize American students, especially at state schools.”  (I would quibble and clarify to say they subsidize some or many American students, as some Americans also pay full freight.)

As with most academic things, this practice varies from institution to institution. The New York Times recently published this list of the colleges and universities most committed to that strategy:

Harvard highlighted because of their struggle with Trump.

Naturally, there are colleges and universities which don’t recruit so many international students. Of that entire student population enrolled in American post-secondary education as a whole, Chinese students constitute around one fourth, 277,398 in total in 2023 according to IIE.  Which means if those students turn away from the US, some campuses will take a significant financial hit.  Imagine, for example, a university charging $50,000 a year in tuition and fees.  Twenty Chinese students paying that level represent a million dollars in institutional revenue, which is gone if those students disappear.

The situation might get worse than that.  International students from countries other than China may react to Rubio’s statement and decide that America is really too risky a place to be a student in 2025-2026. Such a decision would draw on other Trump actions against international students, notably deportations and detentions, in addition to Trump’s fulminations against Harvard students. (See my “Trump vs higher ed” video series) Asians in particular might assess American anti-Asian sentiment has gone too far, but they won’t be alone in their trepidation.  So we could see more students turning away from United States campuses, worsening the financial hit.

As professor (and great Future Trends Forum guest) Robert Kelchen wrote on Bluesky,

We’re at the point where higher education cannot count on any international students being present in the fall. One of America’s biggest export industries is quickly being demolished.

Beyond economics, our campuses lose out on these fine students as human beings, not to mention as representatives of different cultures and the broader world.  American society will miss these students, including the ones who sometimes stay after graduation to become scientists, medical professionals, officials, activists, and entrepreneurs.  Noah Smith offers a good survey of research into how international students benefit the nation.

Let me shift to a bigger, more macro level. Rubio’s decision appears in the context of what some have nicknamed Cold War 2.0, the struggle between the United States and China.  As I’ve been writing for years, geopolitics and academic operations are increasingly intertwined, not always to the latter’s benefit.  You can see a sign of this as the Chinese government took Rubio seriously, responding formally:

A spokesperson for the Chinese government, Mao Ning, accused the Trump administration of using national security and ideology as a pretext for the “unreasonable” decision, which “seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese students and disrupted the normal cultural exchanges between the two countries”.

She added: “This political and discriminatory practice of the US has exposed the lies of the so-called freedom and openness that the US has always advertised, and further damaged the US’s own international image, national image and national credibility.”

A strongly anti-China American foreign policy stance is also what Project 2025 fervently recommended.  That high profile and influential document wanted a new American administration to go after Beijing across the board. Trump and Rubio are apparently working on doing so. (Here’s our full, open, online reading of Project 2025.)

An American position against China and Chinese people is, of course, replete with historical precedent. The first Cold War included a strong anti-Beijing stance from Mao’s Civil War victory through Nixon’s famous pivot to China.  That actually included a massive conventional war in Korea, not to mention a series of major crises (for example).  Prior to that Congress passed the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which build on American racism and racial panic and is the source of this post’s title. One scholar told me he thinks there might also be a link to Trump’s current campaign against birthright citizenship, as a major Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), ruled in favor of birthright citizenship for a man from a Chinese family.

In case you think I’m wandering too far into the historical weeds, some Chinese people are making these connections right now, in public.  For example:

Rubio’s announcement was a “new version of the Chinese Exclusion Act,” said Linqin, a Chinese student at Johns Hopkins University, who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of retaliation… He said Wednesday was the first time he thought about leaving the U.S. after spending a third of his life here.

“who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of retaliation.”  Think about how many current students are experiencing that state of mind now.  Are colleges and universities supporting them?

I must be cautious at this point. Perhaps Rubio’s action won’t turn out to be a big deal. Maybe State will only turn away a few students and many Chinese and other families will decide heading to America is worth the risks. Perhaps Rubio will back down. India could send more students, as they are already the leading sending nation and their prime minister is close to Trump.

But if not, I fear we’ll see American higher ed take a serious hit this fall. Personally, I am very anxious about Chinese students and the American academy now.

What can academics do in response?