In my last blog, I covered Trump and Biden’s policies on immigration and how that would impact international students and scholars in the United States. Now that President-elect Biden gave a victory speech, it’s time to look at how Biden’s agenda on immigration and higher education, in general, will play out.
From Joe Biden’s official website to the Chronicle of Higher Education, where articles focus on higher education matters, I referred 7 articles and summarized here to see how his policies would look different than Trump’s and how it woㅇuld impact international students and scholars. All of the articles can be found under the References.
Related blog post: US election 2020 and international students and scholars
As Forbes writes, “the difference between the two presidents’ rhetoric on immigrants and refugees should be night and day,” and many international students already are looking forward to feeling more secure and welcome.
Biden Administration Will Take Decisively Different Approach to Higher Education
Contents
Biden’s impact on Immigration
Among many areas, international education and immigration are areas where we can see the completely different rules that we have seen during the Trump-era. Bullet points below are collected from his speeches and, as we can see, almost all of them are hospitable to international students and exchange visitors.
- Repeal the travel ban that barred students and exchange visitors mostly from Muslim countries
- Reinstate DACA which gives temporary legal protection to young immigrants and design a pathway to citizenship
- Overhaul the immigration system;
- Expand visas for skilled workers
- Exempt any caps for recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in STEM fields
- The backlog in USCIS’s visa processing
- OPT would no longer be in danger
- Might undo Trump’s policy on
- banning international students to receive emergency COVID-relief grants
- H-1 visa policy
- proposed limits on how long international students can remain in the country
“Foreign graduates of a U.S. doctoral program should be given a green card with their degree,” Biden’s campaign platform states. “Losing these highly trained workers to foreign economies is a disservice to our own economic competitiveness.”
Biden’s Victory Has Elated International Students. But the Road to Lasting Reform Is Long.
Biden’s policy on higher education in general
Below is Biden’s plan for higher education which can be found on his official website: The Biden Plan for Education Beyond High School. Like the incoming first lady, Jill Biden taught at a community college until recently, and Kamala Harris, the nation’s first African American and Asian American vice president and the first graduate of a historically Black university in the White House, President-elect Biden is also committed to serving the community colleges as well as minority-serving institutions like HBCUs (Historically black colleges and universities), TCUs (Tribal Colleges and Universities), and MSIs (Minority Serving Institutions). Full plans and details can be found from joebiden.com (Click the hyperlink above).
- COVID-19 plan
- His overall plan to increase the COVID testing seven times will impact colleges and universities.
- If the second stimulus bill is approved, universities and colleges will be benefitted.
- Campus Sexual Assault
- Provide a new direction on the Title IX process. Under Trump, it was “much more expensive for a campus, and much less flexible.”*
- Invest in community colleges and training to improve student success and grow a stronger, more prosperous, and more inclusive middle class.
- Provide two years of community college or other high-quality training programs without debt for any hard-working individual looking to learn and improve their skills to keep up with the changing nature of work.
- Create a new grant program to assist community colleges in improving their students’ success.
- Make a $50 billion investment in workforce training, including community-college business partnerships and apprenticeships.
- Strengthen college as the reliable pathway to the middle class, not an investment that provides limited returns and leaves graduates with mountains of debt they can’t afford.
- Make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all families with incomes below $125,000.
- Target additional financial support to low-income and middle-class individuals by doubling the maximum value of Pell grants, significantly increasing the number of middle-class Americans who can participate in the program.
- More than halve payments on undergraduate federal student loans by simplifying and increasing the generosity of today’s income-based repayment program.
- Make loan forgiveness work for public servants.
- Support colleges and universities that play unique and vital roles in their communities, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions.
- Provide support to continuously improve the value of HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs by investing $10 billion in programs that increase enrollment, retention, completion, and employment rates.
- Expand career pathways for graduates of HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs in areas that meet national priorities, including building a diverse pipeline of public school teachers.
President-elect Biden has promised to make human capital investment a central part of his agenda and this will have widespread implications for higher education. Higher education institutions and student will welcome these efforts.
Biden’s Victory could be transformative
Challenges
Most of the articles pointed out two big challenges that President-elect Biden would face when he tries to play out his plans:
- As Republicans won in the U.S. House of Representatives and may retain control of the Senate, it will be a more difficult task to get legislation like immigration reform enacted.
- Competing priorities including surging coronavirus infections, racial divisions and weak economy
As it is highly likely that Republicans control the Senate, it would not be easy for him to get through his so-called “expensive” higher ed and immigration reform agendas, such as doubling the Pell grant and free tuition college. Even if Democrats win run-off elections in Georgia and Biden takes advantage of executive orders (fun fact- Trump has signed on more than 400 executive orders), we will need to wait and see how “left-wing” and “right-wing” Democrats come to the middle ground to pass the bills.
Other challenges arise from lots of emergent tasks that Biden needs to take care of upon his inauguration. This includes uprising COVID cases, racial conflicts, and the US economy impacted by the pandemic. As the world is going through the pandemic, many of his plans that will benefit international students and scholars won’t happen overnight. That being said, in the Biden-era, it is expected that there will be no immigration regulations as hostile as Trump’s.
If Democrats fail to capture 50 seats in the Senate, Biden’s ability to deliver additional federal aid to colleges could depend heavily on his ability to negotiate with Senate Republicans — and on their willingness to compromise.
Joe Biden Won. Here’s What Higher Ed Can Expect.
References
- Biden’s Victory Has Elated International Students. But the Road to Lasting Reform Is Long. By Karin Fischer
- Biden Administration Will Take Decisively Different Approach to Higher Education by ACE
- The Biden Plan for Education Beyond High School from joebiden.com
- Biden’s Victory Could Be Transformative By Kery Murakami
- What A Biden Presidency Could Mean For Education from npr.org
- What are Joe Biden’s 3 priorities for higher education? By: Matt Zalaznick
- *Joe Biden Won. Here’s What Higher Ed Can Expect. By Michael Vasquez
