Donald Trump and his administration are hyper-fixated on taking down Harvard, one of America’s oldest and most respected universities. The Trump administration has been trying to control the private university since January, basically. Trump has threatened to remove Harvard’s tax-exempt status, frozen billions in federal grants and tried to dictate the hiring and firing of academic staff. The latest attack on Harvard is this: the Trump administration has now banned foreign students from returning for the fall semester. The explicit threat is to cancel all of the student visas specifically for Harvard students. Harvard has around 6,800 international students, the majority of whom are enrolled in the graduate programs (masters, PhDs, etc). These are literally some of the best and brightest from all around the world. One of the foreign students is a princess and heiress to the throne of Belgium:
Belgium’s Royal Palace said Friday that Princess Elisabeth, who is first in line to the throne, is waiting to find out whether she can return to Harvard for her second year after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ban on foreign students at the university.
The Trump administration on Thursday revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students in its escalating battle with the Ivy League school, saying thousands of students must transfer to other schools or leave the country.
“We are looking into the situation, to see what kind of impact this decision might have on the princess, or not. It’s too early to say right now,” said the palace’s communications head, Xavier Baert. Baert said that Princess Elisabeth, aged 23, has completed her first year of a graduate school program at Harvard and would spend the summer back in Belgium. “And we’ll have to see what happens next year,” he said.
The princess is the first of four children born to King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, and has been studying for a Master in Public Policy. Last year, she obtained a degree in history and politics at Lincoln College at Oxford in the U.K.
Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accounting for more than a quarter of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries. The university filed a lawsuit on Friday in federal court in Boston, saying that the Trump administration’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”
The American government canceling the student visa of the heiress to the Belgian throne is a pretty catastrophic look for America and American universities. Not for nothing, but many of these international students come from wealthy and/or powerful families too – that’s how they can afford to come to America for their graduate degrees in the first place. American universities are the recipients of the world’s brain drain – some of the smartest young people come to America for their undergraduate and graduate degrees. This will have a much larger effect, even if the courts reverse the Trump administration’s unhinged order. Like, if you have the money and means, why would a wealthy European or Asian family send their kid to America for school anymore if this kind of thing can happen?
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- PARIS, FRANCE – AUGUST 10 : Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, Princess Eleonore of Belgium, Prince Gabriel of Belgium, Prince Emmanuel of Belgium visit the International Broadcast Center (IBC) during the XXXIII Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games on August 10, 2024 in Paris, France, 10/08/2024 (,Image: 897576176, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Peter De Voecht/Avalon
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- PARIS, FRANCE – AUGUST 11 : Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, Princess Eleonore of Belgium, Prince Gabriel of Belgium, Prince Emmanuel of Belgium during Women’s Bronze Medal Game between Belgium and Australia at the XXXIII Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games on August 11, 2024 in Paris, France, 11/08/2024 (,Image: 897774383, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Vincent Kalut/Avalon
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- United States President Donald J Trump, flanked by Jay Bhattacharya, Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH), center, and United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, right, signs a series of executive orders related to health care in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC USA, 05 May 2025. Trump said he would soon make an announcement on health care that would be ‘more related to costs, the costs of medicine and drugs.’ Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 5 MAY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Washington, DIST – United States President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, for the signing ceremony of S.146, the TAKE IT DOWN Act. Pictured: Trump BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Washington, DIST – United States President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, for the signing ceremony of S.146, the TAKE IT DOWN Act. Pictured: Trump BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
I am so very tired of hearing more and more illegal, immoral, unethical crap that he is pulling and getting away with. Wonder if Harvard turned him down or one of his spawn?
Barron is at NYU, just saying. Not even his father’s alma mater, Penn. Could be because he wants to live at Trump Tower and it’s an excuse for Melania to live in NYC instead of DC.
That said, a lot of the Trump people went to Ivies, but their kids probably aren’t getting in. It’s much more competitive than it was in their days. Even with parents who donate money, there’s only so many of those slots available, and the kid has to come from an academically rigorous high school to make it work. You know these people fight with the schools to get good grades for their not so bright kids. So the kids end up not ready for top colleges.
We did education reform, but it was about making the educational industrial complex happy, not actually producing a well educated population. The rest of the world does that so much better than us. I’ve worked as support staff at various colleges around Boston (including Harvard), and the international students are just better prepared in so many ways. Part of it is just a lot less drama. It may be that these are the students who leave their families to come to the US, and if I was in Europe, I’d see the real picture, but the ones who are here are pretty impressive.
The Trumpers just believe that Americans are naturally better than foreigners, so we should just get rid of the foreigners. It’s all just a disaster that will lower US standing in the world. We’re going to be like France or the UK. Once a world power, but we blew it.
That the media is reporting this all as if it were perfectly normal, instead of completely illegal and very bad for America’s future is just inexcusable.
Sorry to ramble, but this hurts. I know these kids and it hurts. I suspect China is just going to admit many of them to their excellent universities.
And the timing on this especially hurts. The Trump administration is saying the students can all transfer elsewhere but it’s too late to apply for transfers for the next semester, which really messes up their living situation, finances, and puts their visa in jeopardy.
But you can’t just ‘transfer’ your research & grants & your committee, whatever your grad student program is to another university. It won’t work that way. If the trump admin is saying that then I’m willing to bet not a damn one has a graduate degree. And they’re probably all Harvard rejects.
This is stupid & illegal. I think I read over the weekend that a judge issued a TRO on this. But still, it’s almost June & these folks need to know NOW.
The Orange wannabe King loves nothing more than sucking up to powerful families and royal titles, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that Elisabeth is young, blonde, and pretty. It’s gross, but this is probably the only way to get through to
his addled brain that he’s hurting America by demonstrating that it would mean hurting pretty blonde princesses, too! Now will it work? No, I doubt it. I could see him offering HER a place (which would help Harvard’s case, which they are going to win). But as Kaiser says, the fundamental truth is that going to school in the States is not safe right now. Those with means will choose other schools. Elisabeth could probably get in to just about any school in Europe, the U.K., or Canada. The other students that are on scholarship or have fewer options financially, I really feel for.
Oxford and Cambridge will be it for the elite English speaking countries if the U.S. is out. Trump is so evil I hate him much for so many reasons, it goes all the way back to the nineteen eighties.
I believe the daughter of Canadian PM Mark Carney is also a student at Harvard who won’t be able to return.
I feel for many of these students – hopefully they can stay and complete their studies. Am looking forward to watching Harvard hand Trump his ass. Many of the country’s best legal minds graduated from there, I think almost half of the Supreme court gradated from Harvard Law School.
He’s always had a grudge against Harvard as his Daddy couldn’t buy him a degree from there and rumour has it that they refused to let Barron in (wasn’t good enough to get in on his own merit and Daddy thought he could use his clout to buy his son a place there).
It will be an interesting legal fight as Harvard has the resources and money to take this all the way. They also have loyal alumni.
Half of the Supreme Court graduating from Harvard really doesn’t speak well of Harvard.
Sad but true.
Which could be one reason why HLS is quickly falling in the law school rankings. Of course, having their law students banned from the library for having a pro-Palestine “study-in” isn’t helping much either.
So many of my colleagues — MDs working at a university hospital — spent time at Harvard Medical School, either for an undergrad, or an MSc or other postgrad work, often supported by grants from the various institutions over here — federal, or local.
I got started with a BSc from UPenn before moving on to Paris, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they’ll also catch some heat.
The way Felon47 and his maladministration are killing education, sciences, and research — among other parts like the entire civil sector — is beyond reprehensible. It’s disgusting, and it will take decades afterwards to repair the damage.
Meanwhile the trust into the US, especially into the voting part of the general public, is gone, and won’t easily be re-established.
This is all part of Project 2025 and the ‘big beautiful bill’ thats been pushed thro congress which is not being properly reported on. All of this drama with Harvard is to hide that. If that bill is passed the US is fkd beyond words – he will turn the beacon of modern democracy into a 3rd world dictatorship overnight. Anyone who doesn’t kiss his or his family’s ass will end up in prison or deported.
UPenn might be able to hold off much longer as it sold Trump his degree and degrees for Junior and Ivanka.
Right. I completely forgot about those more than questionable shenanigans. Thanks for reminding me.
Being here in Europe, some of these things are either not reported on or aren’t important in other ways because we’ve got our own share of problems with an anti-education, anti-science crowd. Plus the war, the rise of the fascists etc
Yeah. I’m thinking that U Penn and Georgetown might be relatively okay, especially U Penn — which, should it get even uglier, has Trump’s official transcripts.
Trump is a bully. He’s also thin-skinned and easily embarrassed. Once people have little to lose the gloves come off.
And now universities in other countries are starting programs to recruit all these graduate students and scientists that Trump is booting out and defunding. Canada, Australia, EU…
If I was one of these students, I would transfer to another country and never come back.
Trump wants everyone to be as stupid as him. His current campaign against American higher education and the foreign students who help to make American higher ed the greatest in the world is the worst own goal in education history. Researchers at universities all over the country are losing grants and aid for important research projects in many fields. The last election proved that Americans have already been dumbed down to an alarming degree. The Mad King will finish the job.
It’s not just trump. The GOP does not like higher education because students tend to be more liberal and they actually have critical thinking skills.
I’m at the burn it all down stage. The global best and brightest should not return. Enroll in universities outside the US. It’s time for the world to move on without us and exclude us from the global economy. Likewise, the US scientists and academics being targeted should eagerly accept overseas positions. The US should get the brain drain it voted for.
I don’t think there are enough universities in the rest of the world to absorb the American professoriate, and that’s without even considering language differences. We have a very democratic higher education system and thousands of colleges and universities, both public and private. Most other national systems are more elitist, admitting only certain students. Our colleges and universities are also huge drivers of many local and regional economies. If he destroys higher education (which I work in) he’s destroying so much: opportunity for students, jobs for many people, whole regional economies, and critical thinking and active citizenship.
I wasn’t referring to our entire higher ed system. I mean all the research scientists losing funding or high profile academics being targeted specifically. Scientific research transcends language and anyway English is pretty universal in research environments. And they are being recruited overseas. Just google that.
And yes, destroying higher ed will put the final nail in the coffin of democracy. But that’s what people voted for. We may have to burn it to the ground to rebuild. We need a nation with no electoral college and no voter suppression for democracy to thrive
I’m with you. All international students at all American universities need to go. Period. They are bright and they will excel elsewhere. If the United States wants to be silly, let them be silly by themselves. And this is not all on Trump…most Americans either voted for Trump or didn’t care if he got back in so this is America’s decision, not just Trump’s.
The rest of the world needs to gray rock the United States, even if a Democratic president gets back in (they won’t) and move on and prosper.
We are working on it. It is just going to the time.
She looks so much like her mother.
Hope Harvard can find a way but if this institution falls, America’s fucked.
Interesting that a Belgium princess attends a US university (one of our best), not a university in her own country…..I always find it interesting when kids of government officials in foreign countries attend our Ivies/MIT/Stanford/Caltech like universities.
She did her high school in Wales and her Bachelor’s in Oxford. Now the Master’s in Harvard. If she goes on to a PhD, I’m sure she’ll go elsewhere. It’s about being well-rounded.
She did her international baccalauréat in Wales and then 3 years military shool in Belgium where she left as „sous-lieutenant“. After that 3 years in Oxford and now Harvard.
There are excellent universities in Belgium as well. I am sure, There is a reason why she chose the universities she did-maybe Even security concerns like for the Dutch crown princess who spend her studies partly in Spain to fly under the radar of the threats at home.
Historically being educated in Britain and the US, and specifically Oxford and Harvard, would demonstrate globally recognized academic achievement and make connections outside a small nation. For better or worse, English speaking universities are where the world meets. Even lesser known state schools in the US attract a global community of learners.
Cutting the world off from our universities will fundamentally alter higher education and the job market. And not in a good way. Uneducated yokels aren’t going to be recruited by tech and pharma in the absence of qualified workers.
It’s also a part of the higher ed culture in Europe. With the Erasmus program, pretty much anyone who reaches the Master’s level will have done at least a semester abroad.
There’s also the specific tensions in Belgium to take into account: half the country speaks French, the other half Dutch (Flemish). And they strongly dislike each other. Therefore when they try to be neutral, they default to English. Some government programs bear English names instead of Dutch and French, it’s pretty odd. I wonder how Switzerland manages that.
Anyway. The royal family are French speakers. Going to study in France would not be well received, it would be seen as favoring that side. Hence the English-speaking choices.
It’s for the same reason Americans go abroad for their undergraduate & graduate degrees. For a different perspective, for a specific specialty, for the adventure of it all, to bulk up that CV, and so on. What @Belgian pointed out was an entirely different perspective I wasn’t aware of. Fascinating!
King Felipe and Prince Pavlos studied at Georgetown (and I’m pretty sure King Frederick too), and several other Greek royals went to Brown along with Lady Gabriella Windsor. Princess Victoria escaped to college at Yale when she was suffering an eating disorder from all the unwanted attention in Sweden. Both of the young Spanish princesses have been coming to summer camps in the USA for years. I think it’s a combination of the excellent educations they can receive and the relative anonymity they can assume here.
King Frederik of Denmark is a Harvard alum! He did a year as part of a study-abroad program.
I’m so impressed with her educational goals. Yes I’ll say it. Imagine if the British royal family invested in their future “diplomats “ in this way. She at least can make a speech I bet
Many people are saying Barron didn’t have the smarts to get into Harvard, and Helicopter Mel needed to stay with him in NYC to hover over him. Cranky Trump is pissed about both.
Plenty of people who are smart enough to excel at Harvard won’t get in. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. But if you happen to be a petulant tyrant with a child’s intellect, that would be hard to understand.
Why even consider it lol. Give your money to a country that isn’t descending into full-throated fascism.
People’s unwillingness to recognize the power of financial siege in the age of globally powerfully economies drives me insane. It’s like listening to red state liberals who are financially capable of leaving list off 500 reasons why they can’t but expect those of us in blue states to magically fix it with our increasingly diminishing EC power. If you feed the beast, don’t be surprised when it grows more teeth.
This is where Trump bites himself. He wants to punish Harvard, wants to keep out furriners, but is caught now when the very people (royals) he wants to schmooze are caught in his antics. He’s so effing petty and stupid.
Burning books and destroying education is a clear path to fascist dictatorship. Dictators always target education because providing proper education to the masses means they will be smart enough to develop and spread opinions against fascism. It deliberately creates a society that blindly follows the leader and doesn’t think for itself.
I support Trump’s ban on international students. Go back home, stay out of the United States. Let America be great by itself, all alone. All international students need to head back to their home countries. If America has a brain drain too bad so sad. It’s time for the rest of the world to gray rock the United States and focus on improving themselves.
Gee, thanks. You do realize a lot of us didn’t vote for the orange dictator?
The only thing other countries should be doing to help us is doing their best to target red states with retaliatory tariffs and reducing the impact on the blue states — or giving them preferential immigration assistance. Otherwise, if they want to protect themselves, they have to draw a hard line in the sand.
Our fellow Americans decided to put the largest nuclear power in the hands of Christofascists, and now the entire world has to live with that. Whilst they need to recognize that ~73 million people did vote against this, which is more than the population of the majority of the world’s countries, they cannot save us. We are on our own. The beast has to be starved so it can die as cleanly as possible.
Unfortunately, that would leave the US (a very large country now in the hands of a climate change denier) still able to have an impact on the world and it would be a large one.
What a supremely stupid comment that shows how little you understand the ways universities work (for reference I’m a professor who is also in university administration).
It’s one thing to make a comment that is negative when it has some substance to it, but your statement is just plain stupid.
Maybe I’m just cynical, but I can think of but one reason why the orange menace wants to take down Harvard: not for who didn’t get in, but who did; and then was the editor for the Harvard Law Review, and then, some years on, became the first Black President in the nation’s history. Or maybe I’ve read too many articles on malignant narcissism. But I think I might just be on to something…
Yeah, I think you’re right.
Yes. Makes perfect sense. Trump’s grudges are many, but his Obama beef is arguably the biggest burr under his saddle.. 😈😈🤣🤣
I’m sure the Obama connection is part of it, but President Obama did his undergrad at Colombia ( one of the schools that bent the knee right away). Not that different from the law firms and the media companies that went the route of appeasement. It’s what bullies do, it’s what dictators do – they try to silence their critics, look for weak links, and then target anyone who dares to challenge them. Then they use that person’s downfall as an example for others of the cost of standing up.
Putin did the same when he came to power in the early 2000’s – he rounded up the oligarchs, told them they could keep their ill-gotten wealth so long as they supported him, and then put anyone who stood up on trial and thrown in jail, just to remind everyone about the price of noncompliance.
I’m sure that deep in his addled brain, there is a certain satisfaction in punishing the university that recognized Obama and which has so much power and prestige. But let’s not pretend like it will stop with Harvard – the other Ivies, and really any other university are not safe just because they have no connection to Obama.
“I’m sure the Obama connection is part of it, but President Obama did his undergrad at Colombia…”
— And Columbia was the first school Trump went after.
The princess would be better off continuing her studies elsewhere. For whatever reason, Harvard built up Elise Stefanik allowing her to wield unearned influence on the school. She’s the reason why Caroline Kennedy resigned from the advisory board of the Kennedy School, which says a whole lot about the school.
Harvard has been following the right wing path for the last five years, so why all of a sudden they started fighting against the fascism that tacitly supported, is beyond me.
I’d apologize for Stefanik but she’s not my district’s representative, though I do know her. Several close friends’ younger siblings were in her class at Albany Academy for Girls. She was….not surprisingly, even then pretty close minded, judgemental and not as bright as she thinks she is. The school did try though. Anyone who watched her hearings attacking university presidents knows she did not outgrow the mean girl attitude.
She’ll probably be elected over and over again for the house. The further north you go in NY, the more MAGA it gets. If she tries for the Senate that might be harder (thank you NYC)
Don’t worry, Princess Elisabeth, I’m sure he will make exceptions for young, pretty, white royal princesses, especially if their king daddy invites him to a state dinner and throws him a parade. (I think I’m being sarcastic?)
I hope she transfers to one of the great Canadian colleges like McGill.
My god, but we’re a joke.
Hmm – foreign students means UK, too. Wonder if Keir Starmer and Charles have the nerve to cancel Trump’s state visit? Nah. Truth is that Trump would retaliate hard for his hurt fee-wings.
Even during the 90s the U.S. have always been branded where many of international students wanted to go to university as their first choice(I remembered reading an article about this even back then when I attended college). And every year since then, the U.S. has had a large influx of international students attending U.S unis. The thing with that, to get in, some of these wealthy families also buy properties in the U.S. just for their kid, so they can attend some of these state universities as state residents, and through the years it’s been almost impossible for even state residents to get accepted(ie UCLA had 150k applicants for this fall class, the most applied university in the world). Or because international students pay the full tuition without any financial aid, there’s been some reports it’s easier for them to get a spot. The past few years many ranked and well known universities in the U.S.(Inc state universities and small liberal arts schools )have had record breaking # of applicants, with even lower admittance. Getting a 4.0 GPA, all AP classes, sports, volunteer etc, one can’t even guarantee to get in. (IE I don’t understand how a friend’s daughter could not get into Stanford with all the amazing qualifications and hard work she did during 4 years of HS).
Saying all that, yes US universities still need international students just like US companies need to employ people from around the world for diverse ideas and to keep innovation growing .
But at the same time, we need to step back and reflect what’s best for everyone including for our own residents. I don’t think other countries will understand this issue until they see for themselves record breaking admissions to not one But many of their own universities, and have to start rejecting some of their residents.
Just to add to this re Harvard, they’re one of the most powerful and reputable institutions in the world with the largest endowment in the world. They know what they’re doing and I think they’re going to win this case.
It is really upsetting to think of how many people are having their lives turned upside down because of that orange clown!
Ok deny acceptance from anyone living in a red state.
So ridiculous. I bet he’ll make a carveout for the “good” countries