There are over 1 million International Students in the United States of America. They positively impact the U.S.A's economy, contributing over 45 billion USD in 2018 alone, according to the United States Department of Commerce.
On July 6, the Trump Administration announced a directive for a policy, that would strip International Students in the U.S.A of their visa, if their whole course was online. It imposed a rule that required a minimum of 1 physical , person-to-person class for international students, without regarding the health risks for the same. It wouldn't have allowed foreign students to remain inn America for the autumn semester for F-1 and M-1 passport holders, both based on academic-related visa's.
The policy was forcing universities to take the step of opening on campus classrooms in order to save their international students, a move described as reckless. Harvard University and MIT, with the backing of 200 schools, and tech giants Microsoft, Facebook, Google, filed a lawsuit in a federal court against the Trump Administration for their actions. The tech companies believed that they would lose access to a wider array of recruitment and miss out on opportunities to hire the best. They states that International students would become an integral part of the US business wether they decided to stay or leave as they become customers to it.
Such a policy would've disrupted the Higher Education space and created havoc for international students and their universities, not to mention the amount of economic loss which would effect both the university and the U.S economy. It would have severely affected the potential future careers of students and stripped them off the very opportunities they had gone to the U.S.A to possess. The U.S Immigration and Custom Enforcement retracted this policy hours before the case was to be heard at the federal district court.
At a time the higher education world looks to effectively counter the coronavirus, this policy became a hindrance to them and was poor, untimely, without warning or empathy, and extremely reckless. Upon the settlement, the Harvard University President said "this is a significant victory" and "We all recognise the value that international students bring to our campuses, to this nation, and to the world."
“On behalf of our students and the entire MIT community, we are pleased by this turn of events,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif also said in a statement.
Till Next Time,
~Nehal Singhal