BY KEVIN L. COPE

The recent but thankfully short-lived ruling by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which had prohibited international students who take only online courses from remaining in the United States, intensely irritated an academic community already pushed to the emotional brink by budget cuts, the pandemic, and the erosion of respect for faculty expertise. In a striking contrast to the usual tepid interest in higher education and its woes, the online world—whether news outlets or blogs—howled with reports of lawsuits, chagrined university presidents, and discouraged students. The rescinded DHS action revealed a good deal about the precariousness of life as an international student in the United States and about the decline of American leadership in the university world. At the moment, attention has turned to newly admitted students, as new guidance issued Friday clarifies that they will not receive visas in order to attend online-only programs. In every crisis, there are multiple lessons to be learned if enough patience remains to reflect on the emergency of the day.

In the case of the withdrawn DHS policy and the latest guidance about international students, there are at least two such lessons. The first lesson, that America is becoming increasingly intolerant, is all but self-evident. The second, more subtle but equally disquieting lesson is that the international student phenomenon is not one of innocent multiculturalism. It is comforting to think that the hearty welcome that most faculty members give to studious visitors is a pure and good expression of generous intentions. But there are some additional items to consider.

First, public colleges and universities depend on tuition revenue from international students because they are not properly supported: because legislators do not regard higher education as a public good. The new National Council of Faculty Senates reports that international students, like out-of-state students, often pay two to three times the regular tuition, which is the main reason that universities value them. I know from experience: I served for five years on a major university budget committee, and I heard this time and time again. Faculty members esteem multiculturalism, but universities, with their formidable business and budget offices, are looking for easy dollars.

Second, colleges and universities, including my own, routinely hire firms to recruit international students, most of them from China, India, and other developing nations—including nations with serious problems that drive students abroad. These recruitment businesses glean substantial revenues from what might be called “the desperation trade”: from the uncomfortable intersection of desperate young people with beleaguered universities eager for money.

Third, students who come to American universities from other countries are often those in the upper-income ranges in their homelands. The professional recruitment services look for students who either can pay tuition directly, in hard currency, or who have connections that will allow for government support. In some cases, this arrangement ends up being a subsidy for the ruling class in the homeland, the very class that is making life miserable for other citizens.

Fourth, it is an open question as to whether the large-scale importation of students ultimately worsens the situation in their home countries by reducing or removing the motivation to improve the domestic education system.

Fifth, points two through four reveal the operation of an inside-out colonialism: the notion that exceptional America can do better educating the oppressed than can their native institutions.

Sixth, the success rate for students who have been recruited by agencies is, in most institutions, a closely guarded secret. My own institution maintains special facilities for tutoring international students yet makes no effort to bring admissions outreach abroad into public view, which is a strange approach for a program that allegedly expresses noble internationalism.

Seventh, research in the Chronicle of Higher Education has revealed that many institutions are disproportionately reliant on the volatile asset of foreign tuition, with one institution topping out at 73 percent of enrollment coming from abroad but many other major institutions running between 30 percent and 60 percent. If we can temporarily set aside humanitarian and ideological concerns, we can only wonder whether the highly paid experts in university administrations have planned and managed wisely by relying so heavily on so volatile a revenue source.

The point here is that we should indeed do all that we can to resist policies like those that the DHS attempted to impose but that we should not do so in too wide-eyed a way and without taking the opportunity to question the activities of administrations. We should use the occasion to learn about another area in which our universities are not always behaving as they should.

Guest blogger Kevin L. Cope is the Robert and Rita Wetta Adams Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University. He served for ten years as president of the LSU Faculty Senate and of the LSU Council of Faculty Advisors and serves as the vice-president of the Association of Louisiana Faculty Senates. A former member of the AAUP national Council, he is treasurer of the Louisiana AAUP conference.