Michael B. Horn is cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute and adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The Trump administration’s move to bar Harvard University from enrolling international students, which a judge later blocked, has made plain one of the lurking dilemmas facing some highly selective universities: what to do about the growing gulf between the internationalization of some American universities and the perception among many that globalization is not in America’s interests.
To say that highly selective research universities have been caught off guard by how aggressively the Trump administration has sought to strip away federal support is to state the obvious.
One reason the schools have arguably been caught off guard is less so: They have misread the nation.
Large and influential swaths of America no longer believe that globalization is in the nation’s interests. But many highly selective universities continue to strive to be more international.
The globalization of America’s universities began decades ago.
When Richard Levin assumed the presidency of Yale in 1993, in his inaugural address he stated that “as we enter the 21st century, we must aspire to educate leaders for the whole world. … We must focus even more on global issues … if we are to be a world university.”
For Levin, the mission was clear. In the early 18th century, Yale’s mandate was to educate leaders and citizens for the region. “By the mid-nineteenth century, our compass had become the whole nation,” he said.
Now the work would be global. And Yale was far from alone in such ambitions.
From the establishment of campuses overseas to the creation of research centers and collaborations worldwide and the embrace of international students, many universities have changed dramatically in the years since Levin made those remarks.
Today, more than a quarter of Yale’s students hail from abroad. At Princeton University, international students make up 23 percent of the student body. And 27 percent of Harvard students hail from other countries. These numbers have soared from the single digits in the 1980s and ’90s.
Graduate students — who help conduct research at these campuses — are also much more likely to hail from other countries than are undergraduate students.
For years, this embrace of international students was largely seen as in accord with the national interest. Despite pockets of protests, globalization on campus was treated as inevitable — and desirable — in many quarters.
Meanwhile, the federal government maintained expansive investment in these universities — to the tune of more than $1 trillion in research since World War II. That, too, was widely seen as an example of universities working in the American interest: They had been key pillars in the federal government’s use of science and technology research to win the Cold War.
The assumptions driving the internationalization of America’s universities, however, have now changed. Many people no longer believe globalization is good for America.
That change is most obvious in the MAGA movement. But the anti-Israel protests tinged with anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-capitalist messages that some international students have helped lead have alienated other Americans as well.
As a result, many universities have been caught out over their skis.
Some policy makers now see a heavy international student presence less as a virtue and more as something suspect when it comes to university leaders’ motives and wisdom.
On university campuses, many faculty would undoubtedly disagree and argue that globalization is still a positive force for America.
But with seats scarce at exclusive universities, filling them with international students is seen through a zero-sum lens.
Universities may now face a decision. Do they want internationalization or federal support?
Both may no longer be an option. The compact between universities and the federal government can only continue if the work of the university is seen as being in lockstep with the national interest.
This isn’t to say this is the end of global universities. Or of research universities.
Minerva University, where I serve on the board of trustees, is unabashedly global. Eighty-five percent of students hail from countries other than the United States. All students live outside the United States for three of their four years. But Minerva doesn’t take any federal money, nor is its model built around research.
On the other hand, the University of Texas, Texas A&M, and the University of Florida each conduct more than a billion dollars of research annually, but a tenth or less of their students are from outside the United States.
Highly selective universities may choose to fight to retain federal support and remain global in the hopes that they can weather the next few years.
But with alternative models and the ascendance of skepticism around the merits of globalization, it seems less clear if this will be a viable strategy.