President Trump is obsessed with trade surpluses. In his zero-sum view of the world, if we don’t sell more than we buy in a given industry, we must be losing.
Yet he seems hellbent on destroying one of our winningest exports: higher education.
Unlike with toys or televisions, the United States sells much more higher education to the rest of the world than we buy from it. In fact, the United States hosts the largest number of international students worldwide. More than twice as many foreign students come here as we send abroad.
In dollar terms — since that seems to be what Trump cares about — foreigners spent about $39.4 billion purchasing U.S. educational services in 2016, whereas Americans purchased about $7.5 billion in education imports, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
That means we have an educational trade surplus of nearly $32 billion. For context, that is relatively close to our trade surplus in completed civilian aircraft. And the figure doesn’t include what international students spend here on food, housing, books and the like.
Lest you think these international kids are somehow displacing or otherwise hurting more deserving homegrown applicants, note that they typically subsidize local students. Public schools have partially offset enormous state funding cuts by enrolling more out-of-state and international students, who can be charged double or even triple the tuition of their in-state peers.
