Guzi He’s article “Limit Student Visas” (Sept. 19) misses the mark in several ways. First, such a policy would deprive the United States of the talented and innovative individuals who drive American leadership in science and technology. Roughly a quarter of U.S. startups valued at more than $1 billion have a founder who first came here as an international student.
New student visas have ranged from 400,000 to 450,000 in recent years. Cutting that to 100,000, as He proposes, would slash matriculation by 75 percent or more and would devastate graduate programs across advanced fields such as computer science (72-percent international student), electrical engineering (74-percent), and petroleum engineering (82-percent), to name just a few. Many departments would collapse entirely, leaving fewer, not more, opportunities for American students.
Conservatives rightly criticize elite universities for suppressing Asian enrollment under the guise of diversity. Yet a hard cap on student visas would keep out far more Asian students than any Ivy League DEI policy ever did.
The United States holds a rare advantage in history: The world’s brightest and most ambitious young people want to come here, to study here, to build their futures here—and to build the American economy in the process. Most nations dream of attracting such talent. We already have it knocking at our door.
The real question is not whether we should let them in. It’s whether we are wise enough not to turn them away.
-Ed Gehringer, professor of computer science, NC State University
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Letters to the Editor
