Washington [US], May 26: US President Donald Trump accused international students at Harvard University of taking spots from American students and demanded the school provide a list of foreign students.
President Trump on May 25 made disapproving comments about the number of foreign students studying at Harvard University , the oldest private school in the United States, which is in conflict with the government.
"I have no problem with foreign students. But it shouldn't be 31%. It's too much, because we have Americans who want to go there and other places and they can't because there's 31% foreign," President Trump said at the airport in New Jersey as he prepared to return to Washington DC, according to The Hill .
The leader criticized Harvard University for not providing a list of foreign students as requested by the Department of Homeland Security. "We give them billions of dollars, which is ridiculous. We give, and we probably won't give much more to Harvard, but they refuse to tell us who those 31 percent are," Trump said, adding that the US government has no problem with many foreign students.
Previously, he wrote on the social network Truth Social that some countries unfriendly to the US send students to Harvard University and do not pay tuition.
"Why doesn't Harvard say that nearly 31% of their students come from foreign countries and that those countries, some of which are not friendly to the United States at all, pay nothing to educate their students and have no intention of doing so," President Trump wrote.
In fact, Harvard University reports that international students make up 27 percent of its student body. Foreign students typically pay full tuition and are a major source of revenue for the U.S., helping to reduce costs for American students, according to The Hill .
The Trump administration has frozen billions of dollars in federal funding to Harvard University in an effort to end its "diversity, equity and inclusion" (DEI) programs and to counter pro-Palestinian student protests. The school has sued to overturn the decision.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on May 22 banned Harvard from recruiting foreign students for the upcoming academic year and required current foreign students to transfer, saying the school had failed to provide requested information on foreign students. Harvard sued and a judge temporarily put the government's decision on hold.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
