President Trump on Sunday took new shots at Harvard University, saying he wants to know exactly who the foreign students it enrolls are after the Department of Homeland Security last week sought to block the prestigious school’s agility to enroll foreign students.
“Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING toward their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to,” Trump wrote.
“Nobody told us that! We want to know who those foreign students are, a reasonable request since we give Harvard BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, but Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming. We want those names and countries. Harvard has $52,000,000, use it, and stop asking for the Federal Government to continue GRANTING money to you!”
Harvard enrolled about 6,800 international students during the 2024-2025 academic year — about 27 percent of the entire student population, according to the university’s records available online.
Those students and their families pay tuition to Harvard. International students studying in the United States are much more likely to be paying full tuition and arguably subsidize costs for U.S. students.
Some observers at the same time have noted that Trump’s efforts to cut off foreign students from Harvard, if they are successful, could conceivably allow more U.S. students to attend the school.
Trump has been waging an ongoing war against the nation’s oldest and richest university, fueled by his allegations of antisemitism and discrimination on campus.
Harvard’s endowment is more than $52 billion, but the attacks on foreign students and Trump’s efforts to cut off federal research grants could hurt the school.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the move to block foreign students from going to Harvard on Friday after Harvard filed a legal challenge.
The university also is suing the Trump administration over billions in federal dollars that were frozen after Harvard refused to end its diversity initiatives.
Trump’s actions have been widely seen as a threat to higher education more broadly, as schools seek to take steps to escape the president’s ire over a host of issues, including pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus.
