U.S. higher education reliance on international student tuition creates financial vulnerability that authoritarian governments can exploit. Funding cuts increase pressure on universities to seek revenue from abroad, incentivizing expanded ties with countries like China. Beijing uses emotional appeals and extraterritorial pressure to discourage campus discussion of Hong Kong and Taiwan, contributing to borderless censorship. Universities frequently recruit international students without ensuring their basic expressive rights, and financial dependence can lead institutions to avoid actions that might threaten tuition streams. The combination of revenue reliance and foreign pressure undermines academic freedom, institutional integrity, and open debate on sensitive geopolitical topics.
"With all these funding cuts, it is going to force universities to have to look elsewhere for funding ... and I don't think it's a grand mystery [that] they might consider looking to expand ties to improve funding," she told Times Higher Education.
"The unfortunate thing about international students here in the U.S. is that the more universities want and need them to fill up space in the university to provide much-needed tuition dollars, the greater incentive there is for them to ignore those students' rights and concerns," said McLaughlin.
"If you really need that funding source, you might not want to engage in any activity that's going to threaten it."
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