'Wrecking ball': Analyst warns Trump moves will 'fundamentally alter' US education

President Donald Trump is cracking down on the ability of international students to attend American schools all around the country, but he's particularly focused on using this policy to starve Harvard University of funding.

Those attacks are killing a golden goose that makes America's higher education system one of the best in the world, wrote Zeeshan Aleem for MSNBC.

"Trump has threatened to block international students from enrolling in the university," wrote Aleem. "If such a threat were fulfilled, it would transform the institution — about a quarter of the university’s student body is foreign. And if Trump tries to replicate this tactic with other schools across the country, he will likely rob American universities of their status as global beacons of intellectual production and incubators of the world’s premier talent."

The threat is the latest in a series of attacks Trump has made against Harvard for refusing to capitulate to various demands the president has made of other prestigious liberal institutions like Columbia University, with an eye for forcing them to crack down on college protests like those made over the Israeli war in Gaza last year. It's another salvo on top of revoking billions of dollars in research funding, and individually targeting students for deportation.

The damage to the university could go well beyond just the immediate financial impact, Aleem warned.

For Harvard, he wrote, "losing the ability to enroll international students would certainly fundamentally alter Harvard’s status as a home for global talent," and beyond that "would deprive the university of many of its most valuable students and researchers who might become potential employees and influential alumni and donors. And it would be a loss for the school’s American students, whose education, social experience and professional networks are enhanced by students from around the world."

"Worse still, if Trump attempts to replicate this strategy at other universities and they lose the ability to enroll international students, it could be a wrecking ball in academia, both at the financial and academic level," wrote Aleem. "Last year, more than 1.1 million foreign students enrolled in American higher education institutions, a record high. That’s a lot of money for schools on the line. It’s a boon to American student life to have such vast multicultural offerings. It's an extraordinarily lucrative export for the U.S. economy. And it’s a huge asset to the U.S. economy to have a lot of those students seek out jobs in, and develop ties to, the U.S."

Those working in academic are already noticing the effects, Aleem wrote, with foreign students less likely to want to enroll in American schools.

"Trump’s war on academia and attempt to create a docile higher education system is authoritarianism 101," Aleem concluded. "In the process, he seems willing to torch a key source of what makes American academia great."