No foreign online students

Honestly, the inexhaustible malice of the Trump administration, and its defenders, is downright blinding at times.

With a great deal of the country’s 4,298 colleges and universities expected to go online in the fall, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on Monday that students in the United States on visas are required to leave the country for the fall semester unless they are taking classes in person.

“The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States,” the guidelines read, severely restricting access for students on F-1 and M-1 visas, the endorsements granted to academic and vocational students.

The people imposing this policy must have had awfully straitened college experiences if they think learning goes on in only the classroom. There are meetings with faculty, conversations with grad students, time spent alone in laboratories, study groups, perusing the shelves in the library; it’s an immersive experience, of which the classroom is probably no more than one-third or –quarter. With luck, The Donald will be a bad memory before they can be rounded-up and shipped out.

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