New York University alumni will be walking through Washington Square Park in New York on May 9, 2021.
Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images
For years, US restrictive student visa policies have led to university admissions among international students. The “gold card” proposed by President Donald Trump could change that for wealthy university applicants.
Details of the initiative remain unknown, but experts say the Gold Card Visa program can provide these students with a path to citizenship in return for $5 million.
“We have received unusual inquiries from students in China, South Korea and India over the past 24 hours for Trump's gold card visa,” said Christopher Lim, president and CEO of College Consulting Company Command Education, two days after Trump first came up with the idea.
“Now these wealthy international students have a clear path to staying in the country after graduation,” he said.
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Currently, there are over 1.1 million international undergraduate and graduate students in the United States. This accounts for less than 6% of the US total higher education population, mainly from India and China. Open door Data published by the US Department of State and the Institute of International Education.
“It's a relatively small cohort, but these policies can have great value,” said Robert Flanek, editor-in-chief of the Princeton Review.
According to Franek, international registration is an important source of income for schools such as New York University and Columbia University.
“I know these students are very attractive because they have not applied for financial aid,” he said.
In fact, “more than 95% of US four-year universities are tuition-driven,” Franek said. “For schools that rely on students who pay tuition, we know this. [visa option] It will be profitable. ”
Overall, international student registration contributed $43.8 billion NAFSA: Another report from the Association of International Educators shows that the US economy for the 2023-2024 grade.
Spotlight for university access
But Trump's proposed gold cards also come when access to universities is increasingly in the spotlight.
“The families who can obviously afford it will take advantage of it, but I don't know what the net long-term impact on higher education is,” said James Lewis, co-founder of the National Association of High School Academic Scholars, the Academic Honor Society.
“We certainly want to have access to the university for everyone,” he said.
Tuition fees, fees, rooms and boards for four-year private universities averaged $58,600 between 2024 and 25, up from $56,390 the previous year. For four years, the state public universities ranged between $24,080 and $24,920.
For far more families, Financial aid is extremely important when it comes to covering university costs, especially for students with low-income, first- or minority generation backgrounds.
