Over the last two decades, a sea change has occurred in American universities because Congress has allowed higher education to enroll and employ an unlimited number of people from abroad. As a result, universities have become increasingly oriented toward the priorities of their foreign students, staff, and faculty, not American interests.
Regaining control over American universities will require imposing the same reasonable limits on the influx of foreigners that other sectors of our economy already have.
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Getting a visa to enter the United States for anything more than tourism can be very challenging, but universities have access to an unlimited number of F-1 visas to enroll students from abroad. Similarly, businesses must compete in a lottery for 85,000 H-1B visas to hire foreigners, while universities are unlimited in the number of people from abroad they can hire with H-1B visas.
Not surprisingly, foreigners looking for a way to enter and remain in the U.S. are increasingly drawn to American universities. The number of F-1 student-visa holders has nearly doubled from 671,616 in 2008-09 to 1,177,766 in 2024-25.
But these F-1 visa holders should really be thought of as current or future workers in higher education. Almost two-thirds of the foreign students at universities are pursuing graduate degrees, many of whom are paid modest salaries to teach introductory classes or help run research labs.
Rather than being an important source of tuition revenue, universities are attracted to these foreign students as a cheap source of labor to perform all the basic tasks that professors are increasingly reluctant to do. Foreign students are essentially the grape-pickers of higher education.
Nearly a quarter of a million F-1 visa holders complete their degrees each year, but there are only 85,000 H-1B visas in the private sector that would allow them to remain with jobs in the U.S. Unless they want to return to their home country, they have almost nowhere to go other than higher education for employment. As a result, universities have increased the number of new H-1B visa holders they hire each year from about 11,000 in the early 2010s to almost 16,000 in recent years, as I documented in a new report for the Defense of Freedom Institute.
In addition, universities are able to hire foreigners under the Optional Practical Training program for up to three years after they complete their degrees. The OPT participants are technically no longer enrolled as students, but they remain in the country with their F-1 visas as employees upon the recommendation of their university. The number of OPT participants has skyrocketed from 66,601 in 2008-09 to 294,253 in 2024-25.
To put all of this in perspective, universities employ about 4 million people, not counting the graduate students who are effectively employees but are counted as students. The workforce in higher education had only been growing by about 15,000 people per year, but has recently begun to contract. The 16,000 H-1B workers universities hire each year now exceeds the net number of new jobs created in higher education.
The cumulative effect of enrolling more than a million foreigners, of whom almost two-thirds are graduate students, sponsoring more than a quarter-million OPT participants, and hiring 16,000 H-1B holders every year is that universities are increasingly staffed and run by people from abroad. Foreign-born people make up 22% of the faculty at universities. More than 28% of universities had a foreign-born president in the last decade. At elite universities, these numbers are higher.
America’s colleges and universities are funded, in no small part, by the federal taxpayer, with roughly a quarter-trillion in subsidies each year. We do not want to cut off higher education from the talent and skills that foreigners can bring, but we do want to ensure that U.S. universities are focused on American priorities. This foreign takeover of U.S. universities can be slowed or even reversed if only we adopt reasonable limits on the number who can enter as students or be hired through the OPT and H-1B programs.
In particular, the administration or Congress could consider capping foreign graduate and undergraduate students at no more than 15% of total enrollment at a university. This would cut foreign enrollment at the Ivy League by almost half but would leave most other universities unaffected.
The federal government could also limit the number of H-1B visa-holders hired by universities, either by setting a separate cap for higher education or by requiring them to participate in the same lottery that businesses must enter for the 85,000 H-1Bs annually available. State governments could also set caps on the hiring of H-1B visa holders for public universities. Both Florida and Texas have already paused the hiring of new H-1B visa holders for their state universities.
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Lastly, Congress could limit or eliminate the OPT program. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has proposed the Prioritizing American Talent Act to “end the Optional Practical Training visa program.”
These are not draconian limits. They would only return higher education to the levels of foreign enrollment and hiring they experienced about two decades ago. But setting reasonable limits would help slow or reverse the notable change in the composition and priorities of higher education.
Dr. Jay P. Greene is a senior fellow at the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies.
