Editorial | Opportunity for UWI

The University of the West Indies (UWI) is not Harvard, which is rated fourth in the world among the world’s thousands of universities.

Neither is it any of America’s other Ivy League institutions with their giant endowments, top-rated faculty and top-rated research capabilities.

The UWI, however, is an undoubtedly good school. It is ranked in the 1.5 per cent of global universities. It is rated the best in the Caribbean and in the top 20 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This newspaper is not in the habit of seeking to benefit from the misfortunes of others, or in encouraging to do so, especially when those woes are the product of the whim or the feckless or deliberately cruel caprice of people with power, as is the case with Donald Trump’s assault against America’s elite universities.

Nonetheless, the UWI faces serious financial problems and, in particular, its Mona, Jamaica campus should be seeking to fill the vacuum, or chilling effect, that President Trump is likely to create among foreign students for US colleges and universities, especially the most prestigious ones.

Even before he assumed office in January, Mr Trump and his acolytes rallied against the country’s elite schools, attacking their liberalism, supposedly ‘woke’ attitudes, and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives aimed at promoting fairness, broader representation, and increased opportunities for American citizens who had historically faced discrimination or marginalisation on the basis of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. These ideas do not sit easily with the conservative, rightwing, white ethnocentric policies of Mr Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

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The Trump administration found a platform from which to pursue its agenda against the liberal institutions, in the wave of protests at university campuses in late 2024 and earlier this year against Israel’s persecution of its war in Gaza, against Hamas, that has left nearly 60,000 people dead, more than 100,000 injured, most homes and institutions flattened, and Gazans on the brink of famine and facing, according to United Nations and other international organisations, genocide and/or ethnic cleansing.

The US government, however, has also claimed that the campus protests have been hot beds of anti-Semitism, which the universities have condoned, which they reject, or have done too little to stamp out. It has also slammed the liberal-minded curriculum of elite universities, their approaches to recruiting students, and has insisted on changes to their admission policies, the hiring of faculties, and the content of courses, to bring them more in line with MAGA philosophy.

Moreover, the administration has been rounding up foreign students who have been involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, cancelling their study visas (and in some cases permanent resident/green card status) and moving to deport them from the United States.

To be clear, this newspaper roundly rejects antisemitism in any form and, as we have consistently done, Hamas’ October 2023 assault on southern Israel, in which over 1,200, mostly civilians, were slaughtered and 250 taken hostage. But protests against Benjamin Netanyahu’s collective punishment of Gazans and wanton destruction of the narrow, flat, geographic featureless territory of itself translate to antisemitism. In any event, most universities have already said that they have instituted programmes to deal with antisemitism – and we would expect, Islamophobia, too.

However, Mr Trump has already caused the elimination of, and threatened to cut up to US$12 billion from colleges and universities in research grants and other funding schemes, unless they acquiesce to the administration’s curriculum and governance demands, including providing federal agencies information on the attitude and behaviour of their students, especially foreign ones.

Harvard, the country’s richest university with an endowment of US$53 billion, has US$9 billion at stake, of which the administration has already cancelled US$2.2 billion.

Harvard has pushed with lawsuits questioning the legality of Mr Trump’s action. But, last week, the administration expanded its assault by removing Harvard’s ability to recruit foreign students – 7,000 are registered – which the university says is unconstitutional. It has also gone to court on this issue.

Whatever may be the outcome of these cases, Mr Trump’s posture towards higher education institutions, and especially their foreign students, and its stance against immigrants from the Global South, will in all likelihood make foreigners wary or circumspect about opting for American universities and colleges.

Last year, more than 1.26 million international students were registered at American colleges and universities, according to data from Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).

The largest number, over 337,620, was from India, followed by 330, 630 from China.

Jamaica was 39th on the list with 5,042, a 12 per cent increase on the previous year. Among Caribbean countries, The Bahamas was next with 4,510 students.

Among the other Caribbean Community countries with students in America were:

. Trinidad & Tobago – 1,977;

. Haiti – 1,240 . Dominica – 631;

. Guyana – 550; and . Grenada – 263 .

These, except for those who receive substantial scholarships from their universities and colleges, are likely from the region’s wealthiest families, given that the average annual cost for attending an American institution ranges between US$27,000 and U$60,000 (tuition and other fees), multiples of the cost in the Caribbean.

Yet, very few of the more than 16,000 students registered at UWI, Mona (19,000 in 2020/21) are from the families of the social elite. They tend to go to college in the US, although many of the brightest from middle income and lower middle income families attend the Ivy League and other elite universities on scholarships.

But even the parents who can afford to send their children to American schools may now have cause to think seriously about that decision, out of concern for the reception they might receive in MAGA America, social and perceived ethnic status notwithstanding. They will face a trade-off between the lure of America, the new social environment, and the perceived constraints that limited the attractiveness of Jamaica.

The UWI and its Mona campus must take a hard look at this situation and consider what they may have to do to attract some, if not all, of these potential students. This may include adjusting and expanding their offerings and revamping its image to be a cool place where these students also want to be – and not just an institution for a certain socio-economic strata.