For international students at universities in the United States, one factor stands out in the social divide between them and their domestic peers: self-esteem.

Psychologist Wendy Quinton, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, researched what many international students dread when arriving on U.S. campuses.

"Cultivating close contact with members of the host culture is a consistent and particularly difficult challenge,” Quinton wrote in her study.

International students seek relationships with their domestic peers, but differences in culture and communication often interfere.

“The lack of meaningful connection with students from the host culture is associated with many well-documented costs, including poorer sociocultural adaptation, greater difficulty navigating the trials of higher education, and less satisfaction with the sojourn experience,” she wrote.

Quinton’s study included East- and Southeast Asian international students, the largest group of foreign students in the United States. Among the more than 1 million international students in the U.S., more than 30% are from China, nearly 20% from India and nearly 5% from South Korea, according to the Institute for International Education in New York.

“This group also has some of the largest cultural divides to bridge when coming to the U.S.,” Quinton said on the school’s website. “The independence emphasized in Western culture is often at odds with the emphasis on cooperation and interdependence in collectivistic cultures like China, South Korea and many Southeast Asian countries. That’s a very different orientation to what these students are accustomed to in their home culture.”

Quinton’s work states that when international students are better socialized, accepted and integrated on campus, they have less depression, homesickness and stress, and are better satisfied with their experience.

And it wasn’t just establishing friendships, Quinton reported, but simple interactions among students that could lead to knowing each other better, such as “time spent doing joint recreational activities, with whom people are studying and with whom they choose to spend their free time.”

Along with self-esteem, Quinton examined international students’ thoughts on “university identity and perceived discrimination.”

“Results suggest that self-esteem may be a particularly important resource for East/Southeast Asian international students striving to forge relationships with host nationals,” Quinton’s study stated. “Further, boosting university identity may foster better relationships for international students with both host national and other international students on campus,” she wrote.

The University at Buffalo, as the learning institution is also known, defines university identity as “the degree to which students feel connected" with their school community. According to Quinton’s study, it is “associated with greater socialization” for domestic and international students.

“A strong sense of belonging to one’s university community (i.e., university identity) may serve as a shared ingroup identity for international students, uniting them with host-national students,” Quinton’s study states.

Perceived discrimination, on the other hand, is “the feeling that you or a group you belong to is the target of prejudice, was unrelated to socialization,” according to the university’s website.

Quinton, however, says she believes that this is something that “universities can address.”

"International students who fall short of the expected connection with U.S. students are clearly disappointed, but there's also a loss for the domestic student population, entering a global community, who are deprived of the benefits associated with interacting with people from varied and different backgrounds,” she said.

"Domestic students, in this case, are undoubtedly losing out, by not getting to know international students.”

Quinton’s research was published in January in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations.

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

The Times of India breaks down the most popular subjects for international students to study in the U.S.

STEM and business lead the pack. Read the full story here. (January 2025)

U.S. News & World report addresses some of the misconceptions about U.S. colleges and universities, including the difficulty of getting a visa.

Read the full story here. (January 2025)