President Trump said his administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students because some of them don’t have the basic math skills to attend an Ivy League university.
“A lot of the people need remedial math,” Mr. Trump told reporters Friday in the Oval Office. “These students can’t add two and two, and they go to Harvard. They want remedial math and they’re going to teach remedial math at Harvard?”
“How can somebody that doesn’t have very basic skills … get into Harvard? Why are they there? And then you see the same people picketing and screaming at the United States and screaming at, you know, they’re very antisemitic,” the president said. “We don’t want troublemakers here.”
The president said that Harvard is teaching some of these students math at the elementary school level.
“Remedial math. That’s basic math. That’s not the deal,” he said.
Mr. Trump’s comments came one day after the Department of Homeland Security told Harvard that it could no longer enroll international students, telling the university that thousands of current students must transfer elsewhere or leave the country entirely.
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Homeland Security said Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, saying it hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group in 2024.
“This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the agency said in a statement.
Harvard, which is suing to stop the action, said the administration’s move is unlawful and the school is working to advise its students.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.
Earlier Friday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s foreign student enrollment, giving the university’s lawsuit more time to play out in the courts.
Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accounting for more than one-fourth of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries.
