The recent executive order of President Donald Trump on immigration ban of the students from seven Muslim countries has created apprehension and concern from many US colleges and universities. Many educational institutions have expressed their support for the Muslim students after Trump restricted the travel by the students from the countries Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, and the University of Missouri is one of those.
The school has been a host to 3,700 international students just last year alone and most of these students have been paying full tuition costs, US News reported. If the university loses just a portion of the entire population of the foreign students, it could significantly impact and increase the college costs for the American students.
Mike Godard, Central Missouri's vice provost for enrollment management, said that the situation in the country has some international students pushing the pause button. It is not just those foreign students from the said Muslim countries that are actually affected by the order; the overall international applications has really been sluggish this year, according to NAFSA.
It may be hard to admit but US schools have largely depended on international students to keep their budget intact. Even at public universities, international students pay the full non resident tuition. There are times when additional fees from these public institutions help in the funding so that they will not have to raise tuition as much as they have to.
This only goes to show how the immigration order can be disruptive to higher education, and that could be true because there is more than 1 million international students who studied at US colleges and universities last year and they are said to have contributed a total of $35 billion to the country's economy.
