Education as an export

The administration is making it more difficult if not impossible for foreign students to attend college and universities in the United States. Catherine Rampell, for Washington Post Opinion, argues that doing so is increasing trade deficits when treating education as an export.

We also run a huge trade surplus in this sector, meaning that foreigners buy much more education from the United States than Americans buy from other countries. In the 2022-2023 school year, more than three times as many international students were enrolled in the United States as there were American students studying abroad. Translated to cash: Our education-services trade surplus is larger than the trade surplus in the entire completed civilian aircraft sector.

On top of that, the people who are able to study abroad are often hard-working and the brightest in their class. They provide American students with fresh perspectives.