International Students Wonder What a Trump Administration Will Mean for Them

A handful of students filed into the Office for International Students and Scholars at Michigan State University on Wednesday morning. They were from different parts of the world, but all essentially asked the same question: What happens now?

With the presidential election over and Donald J. Trump the victor, the international students were wondering what their lives and studies would be like under a Trump administration. James Dorsett, director of Michigan State’s international office, said he and his staff were doing the best they could to respond to the students’ questions even though they didn’t have all the answers.

“In general, we’ve been telling them that we don’t know exactly what will happen,” Mr. Dorsett said, noting that it could be months before any possible new rules by Mr. Trump could take effect. “And as those changes in regulations or statutes come into play, we will do our best to help the students understand what that means to them.”

Any sign that international students are rethinking their decisions to enroll in the United States or are not applying to do so in the first place could have major implications for many American colleges and universities, which rely on such students for tuition revenue (they typically pay the full price) and for service as graduate teaching and research assistants. About a million international students currently study on American campuses.

A Stunning Upset

Donald J. Trump won election as the 45th president of the United States in an astonishing upset of Hillary Clinton, a Democrat who had long led her Republican rival in the polls. Here is extended coverage of the unexpected result of their contest, and news and commentary about the coming Trump administration.

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During his campaign, Mr. Trump often espoused nativist views and proposals usually considered hostile to those from abroad. His promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, which could affect international students, have fanned fears that students and scholars from overseas would no longer be welcome in the United States.

But Mr. Trump’s opinion of international students is far from clear. Last year, in a tweet, he seemed to support government programs that keep such students in the United States. “When foreigners attend our great colleges & want to stay in the U.S., they should not be thrown out of our country,” he wrote.

Such seemingly conflicting views leave students like Jai K. Chadalawada trying to figure out what the election means for them; when he heard that Mr. Trump had won the election, he cried.

But the tears weren’t for himself, Mr. Chadalawada said. As an undergraduate student from India, he said, he wasn’t the main target of Mr. Trump’s troubling rhetoric during the campaign. But at Wichita State University, where he studies engineering, he has friends — Muslim, Latino, gay — who could be at the receiving end of any backlash.

Mr. Chadalawada is more worried about the power of public opinion toward people who may be perceived as outsiders than about any policies enacted under a Trump administration.

One of his friends has already taken off her headscarf out of fear, he said. Another was mocked by Trump supporters on the campus.

“The system won’t allow certain things to happen,” he said. “But the ideology that he’s promoting will definitely affect the way things are handled on a microscale.”

Second Thoughts

Minwoo Lee echoes those concerns.

As an undergraduate from South Korea studying finance at Michigan State, he hopes to work in the United States after graduation. But the election has left him concerned about how difficult that may be.

He and his friends from South Korea also have a pocketbook concern: Will the financial volatility triggered by Mr. Trump’s win increase the value of the dollar, which has already fluctuated somewhat this week?

“The dollar exchange rate was a realistic problem that we were most concerned about,” said Mr. Lee, referring to himself and his friends. “Because we have such a high tuition rate and we have to convert our money to dollars.”

With international students uneasy about their future, prospective overseas students may be having second thoughts about attending an American college.

According to a survey released last summer, a Trump presidency may make 60 percent of prospective students less inclined to come to the United States to study.

Benjamin Waxman is chief executive of Intead, one of the companies that conducted the survey, of 40,000 prospective international students from 118 countries. He said it’s unlikely that the experience of international students at American colleges will change much under a Trump presidency. But colleges will have to work to counter the country’s negative perception that Mr. Trump’s campaign has created among such students.

“Clearly they were getting a message of less welcoming, whether it truly is less welcoming or not,” Mr. Waxman said. “We’re all wondering that.”

Colleges will have to find new ways to attract international students, Mr. Waxman said, and make sure current students are feeling welcome and supported. His company, which advises colleges on global marketing, plans research to understand the best ways for colleges to market themselves under the new president.

Whatever changes a Trump administration brings, the people who work with international students will continue to do their best for them, Michigan State’s Mr. Dorsett said. He’s been in the field for 20 years, and this isn’t the first time he has faced the possibility of shifting regulations and public opinion toward those from abroad.

“We’re the first line of support for them, and so we need to be here,” Mr. Dorsett said. “So we will work with what changes are given to us, what the system brings, and help students and the scholars to be successful as much as we can. That’s our job.”