CHINESE STUDENTS CHIN-UPS : INT EDUCATION ESSAY

CHINESE STUDENTS rethink U.S. education. Amid worries over visa ban and risks, some are looking to universities elsewhere.

OVER lunch at the University of Texas at Austin, a professor from China and two Chinese students spoke dispiritedly of the directive issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to '' aggressively revoke ''  visas of Chinese nationals studying in '' critical fields.''

They talked about a Republican bill in Congress that would ban Chinese students' visas to the United States.

EVEN if such matters never come to pass, said Xiaobo Lu, a professor of government at the University of Austin, '' the damage is already being done.''

 '' Chinese students are practical,'' he said. '' They now have to consider whether, if they come to America, their studies will be disrupted. There's no removing that uncertainty. The ship has sailed.''

The two students accompanying Dr. Lu to lunch, who asked not to be named for fear that their visa status might be at risk, described several recent conversations with Chinese friends.

One had decided to turn down offers at two prestigious American journalism schools and had opted instead for the program at the University of Hong Kong.

Another said NO to a coveted slot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in favor of a modest local government job.

A third Chinese friend, now studying at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is mulling whether to pack his bags and finish his degree back home.

Their accounts align with sentiments shared by a senior academic official at the University of Texas, who said that several excellent graduate school candidates from China had withdrawn their application. 

The official added that a number of Chinese students on the Austin campus were afraid to criticize the measures. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he shared those fears.

There are about 1,400 Chinese students on the Austin campus. A spokesman for the university said that its administrators would have no comment.

The chilling effect that has overtaken some Chinese nationals in the United States on student visa comes as the Trump administration and its allies have suggested that their presence constitutes a national security threat.

Such assertions combined with continuing trade war with China, represent an increasingly strident anti-China sentiment among conservative officials, even as their states wrestle with the benefits and drawbacks of having Chinese students in their colleges and universities.

The bill in Congress, called the Stop CCP Visas Act, was introduced in March by Representative Riley Moore, a freshman Republican from West Virginia who said in an interview that '' we're going to push hard for it. ''

Its prospects in the House are uncertain, and has little chance of passing in the Senate, where it would need Democratic support to achieve a filibuster-proof supermajority.

The timing of the legislation is also curious, given that Chinese student enrollment in the United States has fallen by more than 25 percent, from about 370,000 in 2019 to roughly 277,000 in the 2023-24 academic year, according to Data from the Institute of International Education.

This Master Essay Publishing, continues. The World Students Society thanks Robert Draper.