https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/22/metro/trump-administration-revokes-harvards-ability-to-enroll-foreign-students/?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter
Trump administration revokes Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students
The Trump administration on Thursday revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, a significant escalation in its campaign to reshape the university to align with President Trump’s worldview and agenda.
The move throws thousands of students’ academic futures into uncertainty just a week before graduation, and raises questions about whether foreign students enrolled at Harvard can lawfully remain in the country.
In a letter to Harvard, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that the school’s certification under the government’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program is revoked “effective immediately.”
“This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” according to a Department of Homeland Security press release.
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Trump once swore revenge on the Pritzker family. Decades later, Penny Pritzker is helping lead Harvard’s resistance against him.‘America is the greatest democracy in the world,’ Rümeysa Öztürk says as she returns to MassachusettsThe Trump administration had threatened to revoke Harvard’s certification last month if it did not turn over a wide array of documents, including disciplinary records, related to the university’s international students.
In recent months, the government has arrested and threatened to deport some international students linked to pro-Palestinian activism, including Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk.
Harvard has sued the Trump administration over its attempt to influence the university by cutting its research funding and demanding that the university place some of its operations under federal oversight.
Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said in a statement: “The government’s action is unlawful. We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University — and this nation — immeasurably. We are working quickly to provide guidance and support to members of our community. This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”
Leo Gerdén, a Harvard senior from Sweden, said on Thursday that he does not know if he will be able to graduate next week as planned. “It is truly hard to process what is happening,” he said.
Gerdén, an outspoken advocate for international students at Harvard, told the Globe that Thursday’s news was “absolutely horrible, absolutely devastating, for all of us.”
He said he was especially concerned about foreign Harvard students who were supposed to return to campus for their next academic year in September, as well as incoming freshmen who now may be barred from enrolling.
“Four years ago, when I got into Harvard, it was truly the best day of my life,” he said. “And then imagine...seeing this, and your entire dream is being taken away from you. It is just so cruel.”
In a statement posted on X on Thursday, Noem, the homeland security secretary, said the government was “holding Harvard accountable” for fostering violence and antisemitism on its campus and for “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
The Trump administration has accused Harvard of violating civil rights laws by failing to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination amidst the campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. It is also investigating Harvard’s ties to foreign governments. Harvard leaders have said that the university is taking concrete steps to address campus antisemitism and that it complies with all laws related to disclosures of foreign funding.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” Noem said.
“Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country,” she said.
International students tend to pay a higher proportion of the full listed tuition price because they are generally not eligible for federal financial aid. That makes international students’ especially important to many universities’ budgets. It was unclear Thursday how much of Harvard’s annual revenue comes from tuition payments by foreign students.
Nick Stoico of the Globe staff contributed. This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com. Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr.