Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Monday, April 21. Karin Fischer wrote the top of today’s newsletter. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

An American brain drain?

Americans typically stay close to home for college. But more could be applying for passports to earn their degrees.

The current political and economic climate could spur more young Americans to consider attending college overseas. British and Canadian universities are reporting an uptick in applications and interest from the United States.

An outmigration of students would upend the usual trends. Fewer than 2 percent of American college students took part in short-term study-abroad programs in the 2022-23 academic year. Fewer still leave the country for a full undergraduate or graduate degree.

Typically, the United States is a magnet that draws in global talent. More than 1.1 million international students currently study on American campuses, making education one of the top services this country provides across borders.

• The United States has enormous imbalances with most of the world, said Ryan M. Allan, an associate professor of comparative and international education and leadership at Soka University of America, who recently calculated American trade “surpluses” in higher education with countries like China and India on his blog, College Towns.

Now, though, Americans seem to be looking outward:

• U.S. students’ applications to British universities are at an all-time high. Undergraduate applications were up nearly 12 percent from the year before, according to the University and College Admissions Service.
• Searches from the United States for European universities spiked after President Trump’s re-election, reports Study.eu, an online platform.
• More Americans are checking out colleges in Canada. The Universities of British Columbia and Toronto saw an increase in applications, while at the University of Waterloo, more Americans are showing up for campus tours.

Some think political dissatisfaction and federal funding cuts could lead to a “Trump bump” for foreign higher education. Although college-going young men swung to Trump, Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, still won the youth vote.

• Since taking office, Trump has escalated his war on college, cutting funding to prominent institutions, ordering the closure of DEI programs, and threatening Harvard University’s tax-exempt status. The administration’s revocation of thousands of foreign-student visas has led to outrage and protests on campuses across the country.

At least one Canadian university has moved to capitalize on the situation. The University of British Columbia last week reopened graduate applications to U.S. citizens. About 75 different academic programs pledged quick admissions decisions for prospective master’s and doctoral students after federal research-funding cuts led American graduate programs to reduce or pause acceptances or rescind some offers. American graduate applications to UBC had surged 27 percent even before it took the “unprecedented step” of reopening admissions, said Gage Averill, the university’s provost.

• A Canadian education offers advantages including postgraduate work opportunities, access to Canada’s health-care system, and UBC’s “breathtaking campus and close proximity to a vibrant city,” according to a webpage set up for “U.S. Applicant Week.” It also notes that the university is ranked among the world’s best.
• UBC’s intent isn’t to poach American students but to “offer them a new academic home,” Averill told the Daily Briefing. Some of the university’s most important academic and research ties are with U.S. institutions. “We want to support our sister universities,” said Averill, who is American.

Studying in Canada could be less financially difficult than some U.S. students might expect. Exchange-rate differences mean that a Canadian education costs less for Americans. An undergraduate degree takes just three years to complete in Britain.

• Several hundred foreign institutions are approved as part of the U.S. federal student-loan system, so that financial support is still available to students studying abroad.

Still, there is reason to be skeptical that foreign universities will see a flood of American students. Over a dozen years and three presidential elections, there have only been minor fluctuations in the number of Americans pursuing degrees abroad, said Leah Mason, deputy director of research for the Institute of International Education, which collects student-mobility data.

A counterpoint: Twice as many prospective American students have accepted undergraduate offers of admission at UBC so far this year, Averill said.

The bigger question: Could other parts of the world see a brain gain at America’s expense?

The latest on international students

• Class-action visa case? Lawyers asked a federal judge in New Hampshire late on Friday to certify as a class international students whose U.S. visas were canceled by the Trump administration. The move would set up a much more expansive case than the bulk of legal challenges seen so far, which have focused on individual students who’ve been detained or had their visas terminated. The case filed Friday — on behalf of five students from China and India — asks the court to block any deportation proceedings for students from all of the nearly 200 accredited colleges in New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico. It alleges that the Trump administration has been acting arbitrarily and violating due-process rights. (The New York Times)
• Judge orders student’s legal status reinstated: Chief U.S. District Judge David Estudillo on Thursday granted a temporary restraining order that blocked the government from deporting an anonymous University of Washington student. The judge wrote that the federal government did not appear to follow its own regulations when it removed the student’s records from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database because of a 2023 arrest under suspicion of driving under the influence. That case is still pending, and the student’s attorney said a first-time DUI charge isn’t enough to kick a student out of the database. (The Seattle Times)
• Northeastern offers flexibility: The university, an international-enrollment powerhouse, will in some cases allow students to continue their studies remotely or at one of its international sites, it said on a website discussing federal changes. The State Department has yanked visas from more than 40 people with Northeastern affiliations. (The Boston Globe)

📧 For more on international education from The Chronicle: Subscribe to Karin’s Latitudes newsletter here.

Were the Harvard demands a mistake?

Federal officials bungled the letter that led to a standoff in which the government is withholding $2.2 billion in funding promised to Harvard University, according to one report.

The Trump administration didn’t mean to send a list of wide-ranging demands that prompted Harvard to walk away from negotiations last week, several officials told The New York Times. The demands arrived April 11. Harvard publicly rejected them three days later, last Monday.

• Some officials said the demands were sent prematurely. Others maintained they were supposed to have been circulated among members of a federal antisemitism task force.

Harvard received “a frantic call from a Trump official” shortly after it said it wouldn’t comply with the demands, according to the account in the Times. That official said the demands weren’t supposed to be sent on April 11, when the two sides were still having constructive talks about resolving allegations that Harvard failed to respond to antisemitism on campus. The official was also said to have told Columbia University that sending the demands to Harvard hadn’t been authorized.

The White House argues Harvard should have reached out rather than going public with its rejection. “It was malpractice on the side of Harvard’s lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the antisemitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks,” May Mailman, White House senior policy strategist, told the Times.

But Harvard noted the demands came in a document on official letterhead that arrived on the day it was expected — signed by three federal officials.

• “It remains unclear to us exactly what, among the government’s recent words and deeds, were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say,” a Harvard statement said.

And the feds have only moved to escalate the clash since last Monday. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education asked for an extensive list of information, including the personal information of students and employees “who are from or affiliated with foreign governments.” Government officials said they found problems with Harvard’s legally required disclosures of foreign gifts. A university spokesperson says it has for decades filed foreign-gift reports “as part of its ongoing compliance with the law.”

• The new demands Friday were at least the fourth government investigation and penalty announced since Harvard rejected the Trump administration’s demands. The antisemitism task force froze $2.2 billion in funding, the Department of Homeland Security threatened to cut off Harvard’s participation in the student-visa system, and the Internal Revenue Service re-evaluated its tax-exempt status.
• The Trump administration was said to be planning more punishment last night. Officials upset by the way Harvard handled the situation planned to yank another $1 billion in federal funding, for health research, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The bigger question: Is it worse if the government really did send the Harvard demands by mistake, or if officials tried to walk it back after the fact?

📱 For more: The Chronicle is tracking the Trump administration’s higher-ed agenda here.

Quick hits

• New joint center on higher-ed governance: The University of California at Riverside and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor last week unveiled the Center for Strategic and Inclusive Governance. Funded by non-government grants, it intends to train and support college governing boards with an eye toward student success, equity, and financial sustainability. (UC Riverside)
• Second DeSantis board appointment fizzles: Gates Garcia resigned from the University of West Florida’s Board of Trustees, the Florida Senate confirmed last week. Garcia had not been scheduled for a necessary Senate confirmation hearing as the 2025 session winds down. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, appointed Garcia and Scott Yenor, a Boise State University political science professor, to the board in January. Yenor resigned earlier this month amid objections to comments he made in 2021 that working women are more “medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome than women need to be.” (Orlando Sentinel, Office of the Governor of Florida, The Chronicle)
• College president found dead: Jay Byers, 54, was found deceased in the president’s residence at Simpson College, in Iowa, on Thursday after he missed a meeting. Authorities didn’t share a cause of death but said foul play wasn’t suspected. The private college canceled classes until Tuesday. (Des Moines Register)

Transitions

• Monica Swahn, dean of Wellstar College of Health and Human Services at Kennesaw State University, has been named dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Public Health.
• Kathrine Swanson, former president of the Metropolitan Community College-Longview, has been named interim president of Park University, in Missouri.
• Nancy Curtin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Millikin University, has been named interim provost. She replaces Mary Black, who was named acting president after Jim Reynolds stepped down.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find Transitions online here.

Footnote

Colleges have long played an important role in the electoral process. Some inform the public about their options by hosting candidates for debates. Others run polling operations to gauge the popularity of politicians and their policies.

Such buttoned-up work has its place with traditionalists. But the modern campaign requires more of a fusion with formats flavored by the attention economy.

Montclair State University might have just the recipe. President Jonathan Koppell hosted the major candidates in New Jersey’s governor’s race on his Cooking With Koppell streaming show.

Cooking With Koppell launched in 2023 as a student-produced show in which guests join the president to prepare a meal of their choosing. The university even baked it into an undergraduate class, touting it as experiential learning.

“Preparing and eating the food that brings someone home is a great way to connect,” Koppell said in a statement at the time.

The gubernatorial edition gave candidates the chance to cook a dish “that reflects their roots, family traditions, and connection to the Garden State,” as Montclair State put it. Jon Bramnick, a Republican state senator, cooked up a chicken dish from his wedding in 1981. Sean Spiller, a Democrat who is president of the NJ Education Association, chose Jamaican jerk chicken.

You don’t have to be a New Jersey voter to be interested. Who among us can resist the opportunity to find out which candidates know their way around the kitchen, and which are serving up half-baked ideas?