As a tertiary education specialist, I have been watching the latest moves in the “land of the free and home of the brave” with increasing incredulity and dismay after US President Donald Trump’s administration declared it would revoke Harvard University’s eligibility to enroll international students.
The United States was built on talent acquisition from all around the world since its very inception, including to its august halls of higher learning. The American educational dream became a magnet for millions of aspiring entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and technologists of every persuasion for decades. It now all seems to be unravelling. While this leaves many current university students unsure of what to do or what will happen to them, the knock-on effects across the elite tertiary education sector will certainly be felt globally. There will be losers and winners as a potentially significant tertiary education sector realignment will likely unfurl in both the short and medium term. The metrics of unforeseen consequences for certain actions are becoming increasingly evident, in trade, diplomacy and geopolitics more generally, and norms and accepted wisdom seem increasingly upended. All this is increasingly disruptive, just when we need cooperation, trust and partnership like never before if we are to deal with arguably the most pressing issue of the 21st century — climate change. University governance and independence are but one manifestation of all the current turmoil and uncertainty.
So it is that Harvard, the oldest, most prestigious and indeed wealthiest university in America, which is rightly judged to be among the very top universities in the world, is in the limelight and making global news for all the wrong reasons. For context, seven out of the planet’s top 10 universities as recorded in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) university ranking programs are in the US. Only Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College, three UK universities, are also in the mix, placing at Nos 1, 5 and 9 respectively. This demonstrates the continuing global dominance of the Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking tertiary education establishment. However, this is shifting. China now has two or three universities in the top 20 (depending on the different ranking programs) with Tsinghua and Peking universities at 12 and 13 respectively, with the University of Hong Kong as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s highest-ranked university (where the language of instruction is English) at 35 in the THE lineup, though this increases to an excellent 17th place in the QS ranking program (with Peking at number 14). Whichever program you believe, they are all elite and exceptional, given the thousands of universities that exist around the world. They are all magnets in their own right. I suspect such magnets may benefit from the current situation not just in attracting students who might soon be expelled from Harvard and the US, but in terms of potential university students who have yet to apply but who may now think twice about where else to go.
The latest saga on student prospects and participation in elite US universities is part of a broader issue at play that I do not want to get into — I am neither a politician, nor do I want to be one. I just care deeply about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, student opportunities and serving HKU. So it is with a high degree of appreciation that the HKSAR government has seized the opportunities that the current Harvard situation has created. Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin minces no words in calling for “proactive” support from our elite HKSAR universities to help these potentially soon-to-be dispossessed foreign students from so many different countries enroll here. Every foreign student at Harvard is affected, a cohort that currently makes up approximately 27 percent of the student body of 6,000-plus students. However, I see this as the tip of the iceberg. I suspect there will now be a significant decline in overseas students applying to US elite universities. This includes many from China, where an Ivy League education was for decades a holy grail for the offspring of many successful Chinese families. I saw this as a very good thing as the hundreds of thousands of Chinese bright young minds, the diverse leadership of tomorrow, are exposed to Western elite universities, where they make lifelong friends, establish deep connections and build meaningful research collaborations. I believe this can only bode well for establishing trust, partnership and common goals for ensuring a safer, saner and less confrontational world. I have to believe such things will not be lost elsewhere.
At the Global Prosperity Summit 2025, initiated by Hong Kong Executive Council Convenor Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, British diplomat Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, speaking on the theme of “Hong Kong’s bridging role in a changing world”, extolled the virtues of the United Kingdom hosting more than 150,000 Chinese students in its universities while lamenting the significantly smaller numbers of British students going in the other direction. I suspect Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and other Russell Group universities may well benefit from the current fluid situation, but I feel such benefits can also rebound on us. This is especially so, given our mini tertiary education “superpower” status with five universities in the global top 100 — a feat unmatched by any other city. Our elite universities are heeding Choi’s wise words, and positive actions are being taken. Let us put out the Hong Kong warm welcome mat for such elite global student talents. We have so much to offer, and many may stay after their studies and help enrich our society and economy in their chosen careers.
The author is the director of Lab for Space Research, the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
