Jamie Beaton: Crimson Education Co-founder on the US Government banning Harvard international students

US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked Harvard’s right to enrol foreign nationals – more than a quarter of the student body – in an escalation of his fight against the prestigious university.

Current international pupils will have to transfer, leave the country or risk deportation.

The US Government’s already pulled $2.6 billion-US-dollars from grants at the university.

Crimson Education Co-founder Jamie Beaton talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the ongoing battle.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Together due to see concern over how the Trump administration's
latest move against Harvard University will affect Kiwi students who
are over there. The Ivy League university has been banned
from enrolling any more overseas students, and anyone who's actually
studying there right now will have to either transfer out
to another university or leave the country or risk deportation now.
Jamie Beaton is a co founder of Crimson Education, which

(00:22):
helps the international students get into these Ivy League schools. Jamie, Hello,
how's it going very well? Thank you? Jamie? Are we
taking this seriously? Do we think Trump's actually going to
do this?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Trump's policy here is very similar to his one hundred
and twenty percent tariff on China, which is at a
short term pressure hit against Harvard to try to make
them comply to some of his more aggressive demands. So
I would suspect this is probably going to last for
three months or so. We're of course planning for adverse scenarios,
but it seems like it's more a bluster than something

(00:54):
that will stick around for a while.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, so if it does stick around for three months,
does it affect you, like? Is that enough to actually
disrupt your business.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Ye, business wise, we are totally fine because our students
applied to a wide brand of US schools. So you know,
we had thirty six kids go to Harvard, which you
know was the most globally last year in our industry.
But that's still a small fraction of thousands we send.
So business wise, all good. But we're more focused on
our students and the ones holding Harvard offers and how
are they're going to navigate this next period where they

(01:21):
can make choices laps for example waiting it out, taking
a gap year, or even they could take some online
courses from Harvard while they wait for this thing to
clear up. So we're navigating that for the students that
are directly affected.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Are there some workarounds where you can just keep on
kind of plugging at it despite.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
This, Yes, there are. So During COVID, a lot of
students left America and they were doing online courses from
their home country. The Department of Homeland Security can restrict
F one visas temporarily, but they can't stop Harvards, for example,
facilitating online course students sitting in New Zealand or Australia,
So temporarily if they needed to, they could just do
their Harvard degree from elsewhere. And also Harvard has the

(01:59):
world's best roster of exchange partners for universities, so a
student could easily do one semester abroad and then come
back to campus once this thing sells down. So there
are a number of move students can make temporarily. But
the question is how long it lasts. We think it's
unlikely the spreads to more campuses, and it's a very
focused Harvard hits.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Now is this going to affect your Cinda who's there
on a fellowship?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
For students on the fellowship right now, it may directly
affect them, and they may I mean that the scholarship
money wouldn't be removed, but there would be risks for
them having to, for example, leave the country on short notice.
So the most directly affect the people are those that
probably are in one year programs for which it is
quite the structure of their life. Probably a lot of
the graduate students in particular, who you know, we're planning

(02:42):
around being on campus and being out at a certain time.
So I would say for those students, the keep thing
to figure out is, you know, can they just keep
doing their courses from AFAR. Of course, those doing research
won't be that affected because they can do that from
other places, but it will be course work based mass
programs that are one year long, and it could be
a bit more spicy.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Thank you very much, really appreciated, Jamie Beaton, Crimson Education
co founder. For more from Hither Duplessy, Allen Drive, listen
live to news Talks it B from four pm weekdays,
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