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Trump and university cuts: now American students look to Canada

Surge of applications, coming in from the States, at the University of British Columbia, but also at the universities of Toronto and

16 April 2025

Demonstrators rally on Cambridge Common in a protest organized by the City of Cambridge calling on Harvard leadership to resist interference at the university by the federal government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. April 12, 2025. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

2' min read

These are numbers that are starting to become worrying, those published in recent hours by the Reuters news agency. Numbers that concern the 'flight' of American students to Canada.

That's right, as President Donald Trump cuts federal funding to universities and revokes visas for foreign students, the student response has arrived. And apparently it's loud. Never have so many US students been choosing to go and study across the border. And more specifically to Canada.

According to Reuters, at Vancouver University, enrolments by US students in March were up 27% from last year.

Similar increases were also recorded at the universities of Toronto and Waterloo.

But while the latter two universities cited no particular reasons to explain this trend, the University of British Columbia clearly attributed it to the Trump administration's policies. Gage Averill, rector and academic vice-president of UBC Vancouver, attributed the surge in applications for admission to the United States to the Trump administration's sudden revocation of foreign students' visas and increased scrutiny of their social media activities.

The story is fairly well known: since Trump took office, the White House has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding to numerous universities, pressuring them to make certain changes. For example, the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, considered by Trump to promote progressive ideologies, has been demanded.

But there are also numerous suspensions or expulsions involving students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, accused of anti-Semitism.

Clearly, leading American universities have expressed concern about these actions, seeing them as an attack on academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

Some Columbia University professors have even filed lawsuits, claiming that the measures violate civil rights. While the dispute with Harvard University is well known.

What is happening fits within Trump's Agenda 47, which includes closing or downsizing the Department of Education.

A strong political action that has fuelled debate and concern. So much so that even the former US president, Barack Obama, took a stand, intervening in defence of the universities.

The Trump administration's pressure on universities has been justified as measures against anti-Semitism on campuses, but for most critics - like Obama - this is just a pretext to dismantle diversity initiatives and weaken institutions considered liberal strongholds in America.

Biagio SimonettaRedattore
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