Penn has 200 students from travel ban countries and is facing ‘constant issues’ with Trump administration
Trump administration policies affecting foreign students are causing “anxiety,” the college’s trustees were told.
The University of Pennsylvania is exploring how to help about 200 students from 12 countries affected by a travel ban recently enacted by President Donald Trump’s administration.
And many other students could be affected by the administration’s decision to pause all student visa interviews.
“It’s unclear who or how many will be arriving in the fall for classes,” Jeffrey Cooper, vice president for government and community affairs, told members of Penn’s board of trustees at a committee meeting Thursday. “It creates a lot of ambiguity, a lot of unknowns, and, most of all, it creates significant anxiety.”
» READ MORE: Tensions rise on local campuses as Trump targets international students
Trump’s travel ban that just took effect applies to 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Beth Winkelstein, deputy provost, said the university has been exploring a number of options to help international students, including the possibility of allowing them to start by studying abroad. Deferring their admission for a year or allowing for a late arrival are among the other options, she said.
Penn’s three academic councils at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels have agreed to keep meeting and working through the summer to brainstorm other solutions, said Winkelstein, who will leave Penn at the end of August to become provost of Northeastern University in Massachusetts. At Penn, about a quarter of total enrollment comes from other countries, accounting for 6,903 international students as of fall 2024.
And it’s not just students who could be affected by federal policy, but also patients from other countries who come to Penn for medical treatment, said Cooper, who will soon retire from Penn after 17 years. Their visas could expire or a family member may be unable to get into the country, he said.
“There are ongoing, constant issues, with very little clarity in Washington as to where to go, who to talk to on how to resolve these issues,” he said. “It is very difficult to interact in a reliable way with the current administration.”
Cooper’s remarks came during his report on federal, state, and city government budget deliberations and interactions affecting Penn. He noted that the city’s budget is on target to be passed soon, while the state budget process, like the federal one, includes a lot of unknowns.
“It is hard for me to say this, but … City Council and the mayor are the best-functioning government we have right now,” Cooper said. “It’s a little scary.”
» READ MORE: Penn, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore warn increases in the endowment tax could harm financial aid, other programs
Research funding, endowment tax, and other uncertainties
In addition to concerns about international students, Penn faces federal uncertainty over research funding, a potential steep increase in the endowment tax, and multiple probes. The Trump administration is investigating Penn over foreign funding and its inclusion of a transgender athlete on the women’s swim team in 2021-22.
“The amount of effort that goes into responding to these investigations and the requests for documents is enormous,” Cooper said of those inquiries. “It’s just really overwhelming. We have tried to be as responsive as possible in the hopes that that will help build a more positive relationship with the administration.”
Penn stands to lose about $250 million in research funds and has seen an additional $175 million in funding paused over allowing trans athlete Lia Thomas to participate on the women’s swim team. There also is a proposal for dramatic cuts in funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the main government agencies that fund Penn’s research.
» READ MORE: Trump administration demands Penn restore accolades to female swimmers after allowing trans swimmer to compete
And, while the university currently pays $10 million under a 1.4% endowment tax enacted during Trump’s first term, that amount could grow dramatically under a proposal passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The tax would rise to 7% for Penn and perhaps even 14% if the House’s intention to exclude international students from calculations holds, Cooper said. To be subject to the current tax, colleges must have at least 500 tuition-paying students and an endowment that is larger than $500,000 per student, and removing international students could push Penn into the higher tier.
A group of Ivy League universities currently are lobbying for a 5% tax as an alternative, Cooper said.
The budget, he said, also includes other cuts that could affect Penn, including changes in the federal Pell Grant program targeted toward low-income students and the elimination of a loan program that allows students to accumulate no interest while they are in college and a six-month period after graduation before they must begin paying back their loans.
Cooper also acknowledged the community pushback the university received after scrubbing its website and programs of diversity initiatives in an effort to comply with the federal administration’s policies. He said the university has been emphasizing its efforts to maintain federal funding to avoid layoffs and keep programs intact.
“In order to get money, we have to make sure that our programs don’t conflict with the federal government’s views on those issues — not easy to do,” Cooper said. “But our goal is to keep the university functioning at the highest level possible.”