Free Republic

The White House has rolled out a memo, named A Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to nine of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, including MIT, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania among others. The document dictates how universities should admit students, hire faculty, and shape campus life, linking compliance to federal rewards. At the heart of it lies a measure that could redefine the future of US higher education: a proposal to cap international undergraduate enrolment at 15 per cent. The nine-page directive goes further, restricting the number of students from any single country to no more than...

Milwaukee Public Schools announced in September that it would stop hiring new international teachers to help fill desperately needed empty positions. The change comes after the Trump administration announced it is overhauling the H-1B visa program, which MPS uses to fill the jobs. The H-1B program is designed to help U.S. employers hire international applicants to work in specialized industries like tech, education and engineering. The visa is limited to about three years and can be renewed. Among the changes is a hike in the fee for new applications to $100,000. Previously, it cost an employer around $3,000 to hire...

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 33-year-old Shreya Mishra Reddy, a technical program manager at Visa based in Austin. Business Insider has verified Reddy's employment, immigration status, and unsuccessful H-1B attempts. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I never dreamed of living in the US. I grew up in India and wanted to stay close to my parents. In December 2021, I moved to the States for a Master's program in engineering management at Duke University. After I graduated in 2022, I got a job at Visa as a technical program manager in 2023....