US varsities losing ground, as fewer Malaysian students heading to the US

Changing us policies, stronger greenback contributing to drop in numbers

Global prestige: A file photo of people walking between buildings on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Dec 17, 2024. Nearly 6,800 international students are enrolled in Harvard’s 2024-2025 school year, amounting to 27% of its total enrolment. — AP

Malaysian student arrivals in the United States have dropped by 7% from January to April – the biggest decline among Asean countries – amid policy uncertainty, rising costs and changing preferences. The numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels as more students explore alternative or shorter, cost-effective study options.

Malaysian student arrivals in the United States have declined this year amid ongoing uncertainties surrounding US foreign student policies.

According to figures from the US National Travel and Tourism Office website, the number of Malaysians arriving in the United States on student visas from January to April this year dropped by 7% to 1,754 compared to 1,887 in the same period last year.

Education consultants said the uncertainties – coupled with rising costs due a stronger US dollar and shifting student preferences – are contributing to the decline.

These factors, they note, have prompted some students to explore alternative destinations or opt for study programmes that involve shorter stays in the United States.

Malaysia’s 7% drop is the largest among Asean countries.

Thailand had the second biggest decline at -3.1%, followed by Indonesia at -2.3%.

All Asean countries recorded a drop in student arrivals to the United States from January to April this year, except for Vietnam, which saw a 21% increase.

Vietnam sent 25,206 students to the United States last year, the biggest number among Asean countries.

Singapore was second (9,639) followed by Thailand (7,081).

Amid policy changes introduced during the Trump administration, some Malaysian students are reconsidering their plans to pursue higher education in the United States.

Concerns intensified following reports that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had instructed embassies to suspend the scheduling of student visa interviews – part of a broader push by the administration to expand social media screening for visa applicants.

On June 6, the US State Department reportedly instructed consulates worldwide to resume processing visa applications for international students admitted to Harvard University, reversing earlier guidance to reject such requests.

The figures from the US National Travel and Tourism Office, which go back to 2015, show that about 8,000 Malaysians arrived in the United States on student visas each year.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a drop to below 3,000 student arrivals in 2020.

The figures have been increasing each year since, but have still not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with 5,223 Malaysian student arrivals recorded last year.

When contacted, the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said it had no further remarks to add to earlier comments it had issued.

On June 3, the embassy had assured Malaysian students that applications for study in the United States remain open as usual, with no cancellations to previously scheduled visa appointments.

Higher education consultant Joey Ban said current political developments in the United States had contributed to the decline.

“When Trump took office in 2017, he implemented policies that were seen as rather unfriendly to international students,” said Ban, Principal Consultant at Edu Experts.

“The international student community anticipated similar or stricter policies this time around and shifted their focus to other destinations.”

She said the cost of higher education in the United States is a deterrent due to the strengthening US dollar.

“Few families have the financial capacity to support their children through a four-year bachelor’s degree programme in the United States.

“The duration to obtain a similar degree in the United Kingdom or Australia is also shorter.

“We also have quality options in Malaysia at a much lower cost. Interest is also gaining to study in China and South Korea,” she said.

Ng Yih Chen, president of the American Universities Alumni of Malaysia, said the drop in numbers is part of a long-term trend dating back to the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

“In the 1980s, there were over 10,000 Malaysian students in the United States, but since the mid1980s, even state-owned universities, which are more affordable, raised their tuition fees which have now doubled,” he said.

Ng said skewed negative portrayals of the United States on social media have further discouraged parents from sending their children there.

He added that continued uncertainty around US immigration and education policy had prompted many students to adopt a “wait-and-see” approach.

Doreen John, Head of Partnerships and Student Engagement at Sunway University’s School of American Education, said fluctuations in enrolment are normal and often influenced by currency exchange rates, safety concerns and policy changes.

She said increased competition from other countries and enhanced local education offerings have also shifted student preferences.

However, John added that US universities continue to hold strong appeal.

“The universities still welcome international students and have excellent systems, services and facilities to help them thrive,” she said.

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A nation of ‘wrong’ people

 

Even more than in his first term, Trump has mounted a fundamental challenge to the norms and expectations of what a president can and should do. — ©2025 The New York Times Company

IN its early days, the second Trump administration is delivering a clear message: the United States is full of the wrong kind of people.

Federal civil servants, for example, have been deemed the wrong kind of people.

Their political and ideological allegian­ces are questionable, their ideas destructive and their low-productivity jobs not worth their salaries.

Too many are lawbreakers or just “evil”.

Whether they toil at the US Agency for International Development or the Treasury, the CIA or the Food and Drug Administration, in Washington or throughout the country, they should look upon that fork in the road and opt to resign. In some cases, they should be purged.

Children born in the United States to parents in the country illegally – or to parents who are here legally but only temporarily, such as people on work or student visas – are also the wrong people.

They are not true Americans and should not be granted the “gift” of citizenship.

Refugees and asylum-seekers are the wrong kind of people and should be prevented from entering the country.

Transgender Americans lack the “humility and selflessness” needed in the US armed forces, according to a Trump executive order, and can no longer serve.

Former officials such as Mark Milley, who served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Trump administration, are disloyal and undeserving of government protection or even of a Pentagon portrait.

And anyone fitting a “diversity” category of any kind is automatically suspect, a convenient scapegoat whenever something – wildfires, plane crashes – goes wrong.

It’s a familiar political impulse, with antecedents that predate President Donald Trump’s terms in office.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, mused about the virtues of “real America” – those patriotic small towns that make up the “pro-America areas of this great nation.” (She later offered one of those I’m-sorry-if-it-came-out-wrong apologies.)

But now we’ve gone from praising real America to parsing real Americans. And the audit is being conducted by a vengeful and decidedly unapologetic executive.

If, according to the Trump administration, so many people in the United States are the wrong kind of people, who makes up the right kind? Who belongs in the country – in the military, the government?

The administration invokes meritocracy as one way to answer those questions.

As Trump put it in an executive order on his second day in office, “individual merit, aptitude, hard work and determination” should be the overriding factors when hiring workers, not just in government but throughout “key sectors of American society”.

This directive might be more persuasive if Trump had followed it when selecting key members of his administration.

Did Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick to serve as attorney-general, possess the individual merit needed to lead the Justice Department? Does Tulsi Gabbard have the aptitude required to become director of national intelligence, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services? Is Pete Hegseth the hardest-working option to run the Defence Department?

The answer is evident. Their merit is not found in professional experience or outstanding qualifications, but in their fealty to the president. (When new appointees are hailed as disrupters, remember that in the Trump era “disruptive” is a euphemism for “obedient.”)

The racial imperative behind determining the right and wrong people – recall, for example, Trump’s disdain for outsiders who supposedly poison the national bloodstream – fuses with arguments over merit.

Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter who has been named acting undersecretary of public diplomacy at the State Department, wrote late last year that “competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work”.

It would be one thing simply to roll back the excesses of diversity, equity and inclusion programmes throughout the federal government, but this worldview takes that process to its illogical extreme: if the quest for a diverse workforce is prohibited, its opposite must be the best, the only, workforce possible.

During his campaign for the US Senate in 2021, JD Vance told a conservative podcast host that, should Trump regain the presidency, he needed to “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat” and proceed to “replace them with our people”.

His use of “our people” is striking, mainly because one wonders who the future vice-president had in his mind. Who counts as “our people” to this administration? Which marker of belonging makes someone theirs?

Trump has often referred to people in the first-person possessive.

At times, he alludes to a category of people, as in “my judges” or “my generals”, but he has also claimed title to specific individuals, as in “my two Steves” (referring to Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller) and, in the case of one unfortunate former House speaker, “my Kevin”.

Trump has also longed to see “my people” sit up at attention for him the way North Koreans do for Kim Jong-un.

With this last line, with “my people”, Trump may have been referring to his aides and underlings, or perhaps to his party, or maybe to the “Make America Great Again” movement, or to voters, or even Americans overall.

That ambiguity captures the risks and the power inherent in a notion like “we the people”.

When it does not include everyone, when it is malleable and shifting, you never know who counts, for how long, and who makes the calculation.

Does Trump determine who is the right kind of person for America today? Does the Office of Management and Budget pick? Does Elon Musk decide who is part of the future and who gets tossed into the wood chipper?

Belonging has long been elusive in America, a “we” contested by wealth, race, sex and ancestry.

In his second inaugural address, Trump warned that “our government confronts a crisis of trust”, but he also declared that, with his election victory, “national unity is now returning to America”.

One could dismiss this vision of renewed civic harmony as an obligatory line, or just more Trumpian self-regard rather than a faithful reflection of reality.

But that misses the administration’s underlying project.

National unity is indeed returning – if, that is, your conception of the nation is limited to those on your side, if only some of the people are really “the people”.

This president prefers to lead a nation in which belonging is constantly up for grabs, in which certain people are the wrong kind and others are the right kind, in which some are real Americans and others will never be.

The result is not just a crisis of trust in our government, but in each other. — ©2025 The New York Times Company

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America First or America Alone?