Something has shifted — radically — on American campuses.
It’s no longer just left-wing American students pushing critical race theory and post-colonial ideology. Today, foreign students — particularly from Arab and Muslim-majority nations — are flooding campuses with their hatred toward Jews, Israel, and the United States.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, campuses have transformed into stages for pro-Hamas propaganda, celebrating terrorism. Posters of kidnapped Israelis are torn down.
Chants for globalizing Palestinian terrorism "from New York to Gaza," along with expressions of support for exterminating Jews "from the river to the sea — by any means necessary" echo across quadrants.
Jewish students face threats, harassment, and even physical violence.
Some student agitators glorify Hamas’s massacre of civilians — when they’re not outright denying it occurred.
What’s happened?
It’s not just Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) dogma.
Follow the money.
DEI policies opened the door, but financial dependence on foreign students and foreign funding threw it wide open.
According to the Institute of International Education, international student enrollment has doubled in the last two decades, topping one million — the fastest growth in 40 years.F
oreign students usually pay full fare, often even more than their American peers.
Public universities, hit by budget cuts, depend on that income. Even elite institutions are reliant: Columbia’s student body is 38% international; Harvard’s 22%.
In 2023/2024, Saudi Arabia ranked 12th and Iran 14th among foreign countries of origin — with Iran among the top eight countries with the largest growth in number of students studying in the U.S.
At Texas A&M, three of the top five countries sending foreign students are Mideastern.
Similar trends exist at other schools including the University of Maryland, LSU, and the University of South Carolina.
But tuition isn’t the only funding stream.
Mideastern regimes pump billions into U.S. universities, ensuring that their students — and their ideologies — receive preferential treatment.
Qatar, host for Hamas leadership, has funneled $5 billion to American schools. Saudi Arabia has donated $3.5 billion; the UAE nearly $1.5 billion.
This money bankrolls Mideast and Islamic studies centers — hotbeds of anti-Israel activism.
Saudi Arabia donated $30 million to Harvard and Yale to establish Islamic studies programs. Palestinian Studies centers at Columbia and Brown are foreign-funded.
In 2022, the UAE paid $400,000 to support students from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The King Fahd Center at the University of Arkansas attributes its success in recruiting Middle Eastern students to such funding.
Meanwhile, qualified Americans, especially those with financial need, are pushed aside in favor of full-paying international students — many with weak English skills and strong ideological agendas, including sympathy for terrorism.
To universities, foreign students and foreign countries are ATM machines.
They also help turn academia into incubators of antisemitism.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth admitted to Congress in December 2023 that administrators hesitated to discipline students calling for genocide because they wanted to avoid visa issues.
She might as well have added, "We don’t want to lose this revenue stream."
Columbia and Barnard even launched a "Doxing Resource Group" to scrub student digital histories that might be used to revoke visas, triggering deportation. Who exactly are they protecting?
The skyrocketing influx of Middle Eastern students and foreign donations empowers hostile governments to shape curricula and indoctrinate students.
This must stop.
The Trump administration is cracking down.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that over 300 student visas had already been revoked by late March under a "Catch and Revoke" initiative, sending a clear message: Foreign agitators aren't welcome in our universities.
Congress is also acting. In March, House Republicans passed the DETERRENT Act (H.R. 1048), now awaiting passage in the Senate.
This legislation lowers reporting thresholds for foreign donations to universities — from $250K to $50K — and to zero for adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran. Schools must now designate compliance officers to monitor and report foreign funding to the federal government.
It’s long past time to cut off this pipeline of foreign-sponsored domestic extremism.
Our universities should serve American students and American values — not the agendas of hostile regimes.
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Ziva writes and lectures about U.S.-Israel relations, U.S. foreign policy, Israel, Zionism, Antisemitism and BDS on college campuses. Her articles have appeared in such publications as The Hill, New York Daily News, New York Observer, The Washington Times, American Spectator, American Thinker and Jerusalem Post. Read Ziva Dahl's Reports — More Here.