Student Union
2020 Sees Higher Education Admissions Scandal, Visa Challenges for International Students
The coronavirus pandemic led to more than 1.7 million deaths and 79 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 — the disease caused by the virus — and international students around the world largely escaped health affects but were disrupted in their studies.
Higher education in the United States also was roiled by a huge admissions scandal and immigration restrictions, which punctuated a chaotic and anxiety-ridden year.
The issues:
College admissions scandal
Nearly three dozen parents, including "Full House" actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were sentenced in a high-profile college admissions scandal that revealed wealthy parents buying their children's way into college.
The family of Yusi "Molly" Zhao, who was admitted to the sailing program at Stanford University in 2017, paid to get their daughter into the highly selective school. The family of another student, Sherry Guo, paid $1.2 million to assist in her entry to Yale University in Connecticut.
Another parent, Xiaoning Sui of Surrey, British Columbia, was sentenced to five months and ordered to pay a fine of $250,000 in addition to forfeiting the $400,000 she paid to William "Rick" Singer, who facilitated the admissions arrangements.
Singer pleaded guilty to accepting more than $25 million for connecting parents and their children with test administrators and college coaches.
Staff from several universities were involved in the case, such as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, University of California Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. But the U.S. Justice Department deemed the schools were unaware of the staff activity and were nonparticipants in the bribery.
China connections
The January arrest of a Harvard professor who is a pioneer in nanoscience shed light on relationships between American brain power, the Chinese government and funding between the two that involves intellectual property theft.
Charles Lieber, head of Harvard University's chemistry department and a world leader in nanoscience, was charged with lying about receiving funding from Chinese research agencies. Lieber was simultaneously receiving research funding from the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.
The U.S. government alleges that Lieber hid being paid up to $50,000 a month by the Chinese government. He also received more than $1.5 million to create a research lab at Wuhan University of Technology in China, according to court documents.
Lieber denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges in July.
In 2020, the U.S. pursued several cases against researchers and educators, like Lieber, who had connections with the Chinese government or Chinese companies.
Visa challenges
The Trump administration issued several changes regarding immigration and modifications that affected the stability of student visas throughout the year.
In July, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a rule that would require international students in the U.S. to attend some classes in person — not exclusively online — or risk deportation during the pandemic.
ICE rescinded the rule after Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed a lawsuit against the U.S. with signatures of support from more than 200 U.S. universities.
Affirmative action lawsuits
A federal appeals court ruled that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian American applicants after a group accused the university of imposing a "racial penalty" on Asian Americans.
Harvard University said an applicant's race is only one factor in its "holistic" admissions process and denied any discrimination.
Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit that aims to eliminate the use of race in college admissions, filed the lawsuit in 2014, and has failed in other attempts to sue universities on the grounds of unfair admissions.
The youth vote
The youth vote, especially young voters of color, turned out in record numbers to support President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential elections.
Among the nearly 240 million eligible voters in the U.S., about 20% were 18- to 29-year-olds, and they favored Biden over President Donald Trump by 61% to 36%, according to data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
Top issues for young voters included COVID-19, health care, race relations and climate change, according to CIRCLE polls. Gun violence and student loan debt were also key issues that swayed their choice to choose the next president.
2020 Open Doors report
New enrollment of international students dropped 43% at the start of the 2020-2021 academic year because of COVID-19, according to an annual report. Nearly 40,000 students — mostly incoming freshmen — deferred enrollment to a future term at 90% of U.S. institutions.
The data were compiled and reported by the Institute for International Education and published in its annual Open Doors report about international students in the U.S. It is funded by the U.S. Department of State, which issues visas to students and visitors participating in educational or vocational training.
NAFSA: Association of International Educators found that the 2019-2020 international enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities accounted for $38.7 billion, a drop of $1.8 billion – a 4.4% decrease – from the previous year.
It was the first time that the dollar amount international students contribute to U.S. colleges and universities dropped in 20 years, NAFSA reported.
The coronavirus pandemic also left U.S. colleges and universities reeling in 2020.
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But the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center noticed a substantial drop in the number of freshmen, which could be troubling for future enrollment, according to a report in Forbes. (October 2024)
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International students may be able to get jobs at school
International students studying in the United States may be able to work on campus.
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Report says college rankings have the potential to mislead
Each year, prominent lists of college and university rankings are compiled and released to the public, but a report conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago says those rankings have the potential to mislead.
Writing in Forbes, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier says changing methodologies can distort results, and profit motives can create doubt. He argues that rankings should be replaced by an objective rating system. (September 2024)
College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
