Scandal in the noble American family: President Trump's administration revoked Harvard's license for programs for foreign students and academic exchanges for 2025-2026 (at the initiative of the Secretary of Homeland Security). Consequently, the university, in fact, lost the opportunity to accept and teach foreign students - moreover, those foreigners who had already studied at Harvard were obliged to transfer to other universities, otherwise their stay in the United States would be recognized as illegal!
UPD: Harvard challenged the decision in court and won. However, the precedent is unique, no one knows how the situation will turn further.
How the university and the president quarreled
It all started with the fact that Harvard flatly refused to provide the presidential administration (specifically the Department of Homeland Security) with a list of its foreign students and personal information about them. Recall that many foreigners have always studied at Harvard - in 2024-2025 there were about 6,800 of them, almost 27% of the total. There were a lot of Chinese (about 1390 people), Canadians (about 751), Indians (more than 570), British (more than 260 people) and Koreans (about the same number).
As a result, Harvard was accused, attention, of "promoting violence, anti-Semitism, and coordination with the Chinese Communist Party"!
What exactly were homeland security professionals looking for? They demanded from the university records of foreign students who were seen in protest activities, including audio and video recordings. They say that such students and their actions undermine the foundations of US security.
Harvard's outrage
The university, a bastion of American-style democracy, however, immediately filed a lawsuit and argued that such demands undermined the foundations of the American Constitution, federal law, and the very spirit of America—that it was "the immediate and irreparable harm caused by this lawless act."
It is difficult to predict how the situation will develop further - there have been no such precedents in the history of American education.
