LAFAYETTE — After President Donald Trump issued a travel ban targeting several majority-Muslim countries on a Friday night in January, Purdue University immediately sent out an email to international students who had applied or been admitted to enroll in the fall.
In the email, Bryant Priester, director of international admissions and recruitment, emphasized Purdue’s long history of admitting international students and said it will continue to do so.
His office also sent a video of current international students singing the Purdue fight song to let them know "wherever they are in the world, they’re Boilermakers," Priester said.
At Purdue and at colleges and universities across the country, concerns soon boiled after the executive order was announced about what affect it might have on enrollment from prospective students in the seven countries originally included in the ban and international students in general.
The Association of American Universities, a nonprofit coalition of 60 research universities, quickly issued a statement against the ban and urged the Trump Administration to make it clear that the U.S continues to welcomes talented scholars from all countries to its academic institutions, while also noting the importance to the nation’s economy.
"Other countries have set the goal of surpassing the United States as the global leader in higher education, research and innovation," the letter read. “Allowing them to replace this country as the prime destination for the most talented students and researchers would cause irreparable damage, and help them to achieve their goal of global leadership.”
Although the original ban and the revised version that rolled out in March were swiftly blocked by federal judges, the negative publicity surrounding it, along with the tense political climate, may have been enough to make a significant dent in applications from international students for this fall at many U.S. universities.