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International students enrolled in U.S. universities are either a positive influence on campuses that bring cultural diversity and tuition dollars, or they’re a drain on the U.S. higher education system that doesn’t benefit American students and their interests, according to scholars who recently debated the topic.
The debate hosted by the MIT Free Speech Alliance as part of its Open Discourse series featured four scholars who appeared excited and animated with big smiles as they took turns poking holes in each other’s arguments in a debate that has also become part of the national conversation under the Trump administration.
“International students were being targeted for arrest and deportation, sometimes based on nothing more than their speech, and there was a lot of talk of overhauling the visa system that brings so many international students to our campuses,” MIT Free Speech Alliance executive director Peter Bonilla told The College Fix.
“This debate was happening in real-time, with live ammo, so to speak, and as such, it needed a level-headed conversation where the issues could be hashed out,” he said.
The scholars agreed that some amount of international students belong on U.S. campuses, but the deeper question centered on whether American higher education can balance financial necessity with educational mission, ensuring that global engagement strengthens, rather than defines, the future of U.S. universities.
The crux of the debate centered on whether U.S. universities are “too dependent” on international students’ tuition dollars, with those who support international enrollment arguing it’s not even close.
International students represent less than 10 percent of the student body at most U.S. universities, “hardly the majority of the business model,” said Chris Glass, a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Boston College.
David Freed, a medical technology expert, also argued that international students enrich classrooms, strengthen research, and build global partnerships.
“They bring value beyond tuition — they help research, they help reputation, they help global partnerships,” Freed said.
He said most industrialized countries across the globe are currently working to expand their international student population through a variety of programs and investments.
“The pattern is clear: all major economies in the world are creating policies to attract international students and build their scientific talent,” he said. “…In a world where technology catalyses economic growth and geopolitical influence, the countries that win the talent competition will lead.”
To ensure American supremacy, “it needs to continue to defend its talent advantage,” he said.
But universities rely on higher-paying international students to balance budgets, said Nathan Halberstadt is a Partner at New Founding, a venture firm focused on critical civilizational problems.
“When a university’s business model counts on high-fee paying non-resident students, it exposes the institution to geopolitical and regulatory risk,” Halberstadt said.
Even though international students make up only about 5 to 10 percent of total enrollment, their tuition impact is disproportionately large, and some institutions may prioritize international recruitment for revenue over serving local or low-income domestic students, he added.
And James Fishback, founder of the free-thinking investment firm Azoria, pointed out that for every one American student in China, there are 1,000 Chinese students in America, adding “that is not reciprocal, that is not fair, that is not cultural exchange.”
He said this ratio is also true of the exchange rates for India and “every other country in the world.”
What’s more, he said the international students accepted at American universities should “be the best of the best,” but that’s not happening, adding “we have to solve for meritocracy in this system.”
When moderator Anant Agarwal, founder of edX and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, pressed both sides to define what threshold counts as “too dependent, all the scholars acknowledged that international students are essential to the U.S. higher-ed ecosystem.
They seemed to agree that there are financial and geopolitical risks, but their severity varies by institution.
As for who “won” the Nov. 6 debate, Bonilla said that wasn’t for him to decide.
“Part of why I’m here is because two generations ago, my grandfather earned a scholarship to study in the United States after growing up in a poor village in Honduras,” Bonilla said. “But we don’t take sides in debates we hold — that’s why we don’t conduct a vote. A rigorous, civil conversation took place, and free speech was the winner.”
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