Pressure on Ivy: Trump bans Harvard from accepting international students
The administration of US President Donald Trump has stripped one of the country's leading universities, Harvard University, of the right to enroll international students, and hence the associated funding. The conflict between the current political elite and Ivy League universities, which promote an extreme leftist agenda, escalated after two Israeli diplomats were killed in Washington the day before. Details of the confrontation can be found in the Izvestia article.
Why did Trump ban Harvard from accepting international students
The Trump administration has banned Harvard University, one of the leading universities in the United States, from accepting international students. It is noteworthy that foreigners make up a third of all students, this is one of the key sources of funding for the oldest American university. Now the university has lost its certification in the student and educational exchange program, and therefore the right to accept students from abroad.
The conflict between American conservatives and the Ivy League, which promotes an extreme leftist agenda, has escalated after a new round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. At that time, a wave of anti-Israeli protests swept through 23 universities in the country. Moreover, most of these universities were among the country's elite educational institutions: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Harvard, Yale, Princeton (the last four are in the famous Ivy League), the University of Michigan, Berkeley and others. Since October 2023, America as a whole has been witnessing a rapid stratification of the democratic electorate on this issue, often reaching the point of confrontation. It is important to note that until recently, the issue of support for Israel in the domestic political discourse in the United States has never been questioned.
As a result, in April 2025, the US presidential administration promised to leave the university without government funding if it did not fulfill a number of requirements. She sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber with a list of tasks that must be completed by August 2025 and which must be followed at least until 2028. Among the requirements is an "audit of the views" of students and staff of an educational institution, as well as a general tightening of discipline.
In total, we are talking about eight criteria, including providing information about the term papers of each foreigner and data on students who were involved in illegal (protest) activities.
"In recent years, Harvard has failed to meet either the intellectual requirements or the principles of civil liberties that justify federal funding," said the document, which was also signed by representatives of the Office of General Services, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The refusal to comply with these requirements resulted in Harvard being deprived of federal grants worth $2.2 billion, and then the right to accept foreigners. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristy Noem, said that this decision was made "due to the university's failure to comply with simple reporting requirements."
How many international students are there at Harvard and how much does the tuition cost
International students are an important source of income for Harvard. In total, about 6.8 thousand young people from China, India, the Arab monarchies of the Middle East and the EU studied here last year, The New York Times said. Moreover, over the past decade, the percentage of foreigners has increased by a third. For comparison, in the 2010-2011 academic year, about 19% of non-American citizens studied at Harvard.
Tuition at Harvard in the 2025-2026 academic year averages $59.3 thousand, the cost depends on the chosen program. Now prices can rise to almost $87,000, including accommodation and meals.
Against the background of restrictions, Harvard has already been forced to cut costs, as its budget deficit has reached $700 million.
The deprivation of state funding and the right to enroll foreign students makes university officials worry about the coming crisis. A Harvard representative called the administration's actions illegal. The side of the educational institution believes that the ban on student visas can cause serious damage to Harvard, the United States and negatively affect the academic mission of the institution.
"Without international students and without the ability to attract the best people from all over the world, Harvard will no longer be Harvard," a university graduate from Stockholm told the NYT.
What is happening at other universities in the USA
Harvard is not the only American university that has received such demands from the Trump administration. In March 2025, Columbia University lost a $400 million federal grant, and in April, a $200 million grant was frozen for Princeton.
Cornell and Northwestern Universities learned about the suspension of funding from the media. They lost support by $1 billion and $790 million, respectively.
Israel's influence on the American political process
The influence of Israel on the American political process has been studied in detail. The book "The Israeli Lobby and American Foreign Policy" by John Mearsheimer, a well-known political analyst in Russia, made a lot of noise at the time. This influence has never been monolithic and did not depend on the party affiliation of a particular politician. At the same time, the support of Democrats from the Jewish community has long been part of the US political tradition, says Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada. According to him, the incorporation of the Jewish community into the political elite began in the era of Woodrow Wilson and consolidated during the time of Franklin Roosevelt, in the 30s of the XX century.
However, polls show that American citizens' support for Israel is consistently declining. According to Gallup, in March 2025 it reached its lowest level in the last 25 years, and in the context of the Middle East crisis it fell below 50% (pro-Palestinian sentiments, on the contrary, rose to 33%). Moreover, this trend affects both the democratic and Republican electorates (although significantly less), but it is especially strongly felt among young people, where the number of sympathizers of Israel and Palestine has almost reached parity.
According to experts, the development of this social trend seriously worries many representatives of the American political class. In their opinion, the Trump administration's pressure on the Ivy League is an attempt to stop a dangerous trend.
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