By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
Above the doorway of James Madison High School in Brooklyn, these words of President Madison are inscribed: “Education is the true foundation of civil liberty.” This is Madison High School’s 100th year, and since my graduation in 1970, those words have held a special meaning to me. Education is fundamental: it is a pathway to human betterment and achievement. International education is of particular importance in communicating and sharing diverse life experiences and teaching us to expand our understanding of how the world works. For some, it is Americans studying abroad; for others, it is international students learning in America’s world-class universities. For some, it is service abroad in the military or the Peace Corps. For faculty, it is experiencing the opportunity of teaching abroad. All these experiences are transformative. This has touched me personally for a long time. My best friend in graduate school was a Lebanese Christian who wrote his dissertation about the Lebanese Civil War and taught me about the devastating impact of civil disorder on daily life in Beirut half a century ago. My best female friend in college was from Michigan City, Indiana, and one semester, she taught English to school children in Rouen, France. She taught me that the world doesn’t end at America’s shores. My best male friend and bandmate in college served in the last Peace Corps class in Korea and ended up co-authoring textbooks on Asian history. He taught me about a world beyond that typically understood by a boy from Brooklyn.
For about six years, I served as a judge for the Yidan Prize for Education. Charles Yidan, one of the founders of Tencent, has endowed the world’s largest prizes for education research and education innovation. During those years, I joined education experts from around the world in spirited discussions about how to develop more effective and far-reaching innovations in education. It was thrilling to see the openness and creativity of global educators working to improve their craft. The two master’s programs I direct at Columbia have large numbers of international students. In one, the Luksic Foundation funds two students from Chile to study sustainability management. In the other, the workshop group I advised last summer and fall was 100% international; I was the only one from the United States in the room most of the time. We were conducting a two-semester course simulation of a proposed organic waste program’s management in New York State, and these students learned about American federalism, state and local government operations, and the history of New York politics. They shared lessons learned with each other and taught me about the difference between our political structure and theirs. It was an immersive learning experience, valuable for all of us.
In the 1990s, along with my colleague Bill Eimicke, I taught public management several weekends each year at the La Universidad Externado, a superb university in Bogotá, Colombia. There, I learned by observing Colombia’s long struggle to achieve political stability and peace while dealing with extreme income inequality. Later, for about a decade, Bill and I had the honor of teaching civil servants in Hong Kong for a week each year about management innovation and sustainability management. We learned how they managed an efficient municipal government while struggling and eventually failing to maintain political independence. In more recent times, I served on a faculty advisory board at the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University (TAU), where I learned about the complexity and diversity of Israel’s universities, politics, and culture. I also learned about the sophistication of Israeli environmental science, engineering, and technology. My younger daughter received her master’s degree in Conflict Resolution and Mediation from Tel Aviv University. My travels to see her and lecture at TAU also enabled me to learn and grow, personally and emotionally—lessons similar to many of those brought by global travel, personal, emotional, and private.
Low-cost travel, inexpensive international communication, global trade, and the growing reputation of American universities have made higher education one of this country’s top export industries. According to a 2024 study by the Association of International Educators:
“1.1 million international students at U.S. colleges and universities contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 academic year and supported more than 378,000 jobs. The economic activity total is the highest amount ever calculated by NAFSA, eclipsing the high water mark of $41 billion in 2018-2019 academic year. This is the third straight year of recorded increases following the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic...”
This economic news is echoed by a recent piece in the Economic Times that noted:
“Higher education is considered the 10th-largest U.S. export, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis. While students physically come to the United States, the revenue they generate is treated as an export because it brings in foreign capital… International students typically arrive with an estimated $29,000 each to spend annually on tuition, housing, food, books, and other essentials. That money is not just supporting elite university budgets — it is also fueling local economies across America…the largest share of international students attend public institutions. For example, just three state universities — Arizona State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and UC Berkeley — attracted international students who pumped nearly $1.7 billion into their local economies and supported over 16,800 jobs. Even smaller communities feel the effects. In Mankato, Minnesota — a town of just 45,000 — the local university's 1,716 international students generated $45.9 million.”
Despite the intellectual and economic benefits of international students, the Trump Administration has decided to ban foreign students from enrolling at Harvard University. While the Courts have stopped this ill-conceived policy for the moment, it is bound to have a chilling effect on international students enrolling in American universities. Snatching immigrants and international students off the streets for unproved crimes without due process is terrifying enough. Preventing students from getting visas or disqualifying their university from enrolling them and allowing them to continue their studies will not encourage students to travel thousands of miles to go to school in a land suddenly hostile to their presence. President Trump is eager to build iPhones in America, one would think he’d like to educate and attract as immigrants the folks who will build the next generation’s innovative technology. There is more money in invention, innovation, and design than in manufacturing. Someone needs to share that insight with the people running America’s economy.
Moreover, the Trump Administration’s concern for the balance of trade deficits seems to ignore the positive impact of higher education on that balance of trade. The economic impact of the attack on international students will be large, even if the Courts reverse many of these assaults on international education. Students who have long dreamed of coming to America to go to school are now frightened by our national government. They worry that if they start their studies here, they may not be able to complete them.
Ironically, attacks on Canadians, international students, and other folks from abroad are already negatively impacting tourism in New York City and may well reduce occupancy rates for New York City hotels, including the Trump Hotel near Columbus Circle. Unless they have no choice, people only travel to places that welcome them. Many New York City hotel patrons are parents visiting international students at universities like NYU and Columbia. However, the economic impact of banning international students is secondary to the negative impact of such a ban on education itself.
As an educator, I find the presence of international students, along with students from all over the United States, an incredibly valuable asset in the classroom. Students with different lived experiences view the policy and management concepts I teach through different lenses. This is valuable in teaching students to look at policy and organizational issues from a variety of perspectives.
Columbia’s neighborhood of Morningside Heights includes an important international education institution called International House. It provides living quarters for American and international students and includes active programming that encourages them to engage with each other. A few years ago, I gave a lecture there and learned about its residents and the way “I-House” cares for them. We were nearing the winter break, and I asked my host who remained and who traveled over the holidays. The director of student activities told me that the wealthy ones traveled home or to exotic locations. But for many students, their families had saved and sacrificed to send them to New York, and they could not afford to travel home for the holidays. She told me that every day International House had programs for these students: theatre, concerts, speakers, discussions, games, and tours. They were concerned that these students might feel depressed or left out. I was deeply moved by their care for these students. It is a central part of the mission of International House. According to their website:
“International House was the first global community of its kind, predating the United Nations by 21 years. For close to 100 years it has transformed the lives of more than 65,000 Alumni, which include not only Nobel Prize winners, heads of state, award-winning authors, singers, actors, and CEOs, but teachers, doctors, small business owners, community leaders and volunteers throughout the world. We achieve our mission of preparing leaders for the global community by building core values of Respect, Empathy, and Moral Courage through a lived experience that consists of organic encounters and a series of unparalleled programs offered within our Morningside Heights facilities. Additionally, we consistently seek out strategic partnerships to encourage diversity of thought and experience among our Residents.”
The International House website also includes details on a classic story of America’s welcome to foreigners that we need to remember during this current onslaught of cruelty emanating from the xenophobic America-only mindset of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. According to the “I-House” site:
“I-House was originally conceived by Harry Edmonds, an official with the YMCA, who in 1909 had a chance encounter with a lone graduate student from China. As recounted by Edmonds to the New York Times in 1979, “One frosty morning I was going up the steps of the Columbia library when I met a Chinese student coming down. I said, ‘Good morning.’ As I passed on, I noticed he stopped. I went back. “He said, ‘Thank you for speaking to me. I’ve been in New York three weeks and you are the first person who has spoken to me.’ “With my wife’s insistence, I agreed I had to do something.” That “something” began with Edmonds and his wife, Florence, inviting international students to their home for Sunday Supper. The lively exchanges inspired Edmonds to create a place for international students to feel at home and create camaraderie with others. Edmonds’ dream was brought to life by the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the Cleveland H. Dodge family, who funded the construction of the International House building, which since has been designated a New York City landmark.”
That is the America that welcomed my grandparents escaping antisemitism in Poland and Russia in the first decades of the 20th century. That was the expression of America’s values at our very best, and I believe those values remain with most Americans. We are a nation of immigrants. And we must remain part of a global community, which includes international education. We need exchanges of ideas, teaching, learning, and experiences across borders. The relationships built by these exchanges are incredibly valuable and precious. Successful exchange requires the care, kindness, and nurturing exhibited by the founder of International House. It is irreplaceable and is now under grave threat. The joy of international engagement and the satisfaction derived from learning and friendship is a force for peace and prosperity in the world. Its demise in America would be destructive and shameful. I am optimistic enough to believe we will be resilient and overcome this threat. But the proof will begin next fall, if the government does not ban international students and these students display the courage needed to enroll here despite this adversity. I hope they do. They will be welcomed in Columbia’s classrooms and campuses. They are a vital and irreplaceable part of our community.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
