Restoring American Excellence in Higher Education
1. Reserving College Spots for American Students
The Problem: America’s universities have increasingly prioritized international enrollment over American students, leaving qualified U.S. citizens competing for limited spots at their own country’s institutions. At some elite universities, foreign students comprise an astonishing percentage of the student body, fundamentally changing the character and accessibility of American higher education.
Did You Know?
Approximately 40% of students at Columbia University are foreign nationals. This trend is replicated across many elite institutions, leaving American students fighting for admission to their own universities
Solutions Worth Examining: Cap Foreign Student Enrollment
We advocate for legislation that would limit the number of foreign students at U.S. universities to ensure American students have fair access to educational opportunities in their own country.
This common-sense reform would:
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- Prioritize American students by reserving college spots for U.S. citizens and permanent residents
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- Cap international enrollment at 5% of total student population at institutions participating in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program
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- Maintain educational quality while ensuring accessibility for American families
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- Protect national interests by ensuring our universities serve American students first
☑ Legislative Action Already Underway
Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) has already introduced S. 2111, the “American Students First Act of 2025”, which would cap foreign student enrollment at 10% of university student populations, with the possibility of waiving up to 15% for national security purposes. Bill Introduced: June 18, 2025
Bill Introduced: June 18, 2025
Status: Referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Legislative Framework
The proposed legislation would amend Section 214 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184) to establish clear limits on foreign student visas (F, J, and M visas). Specifically:
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- No visa would be issued if it would cause foreign student enrollment to exceed 5% of the institution’s total student population
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- This cap would apply to all institutions certified under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program
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- Strong enforcement provisions to ensure compliance
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- Anti-circumvention provision: Block all student visas if activist courts try to block it with pretrial injunction until case is fully litigated
Why this Matters
For decades, American Universities have expanded international enrollment for financial reasons, often at the expense of American students. Foreign students typically pay full tuition, making them attractive to the university administrators focused on revenue generation rather than educational mission.
This has created a system where:
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- Qualified American students face rejection despite strong credentials
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- Universities prioritize international revenue over domestic accessibly
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- American Families shoulder crushing student loan debt while universities grow endowments
“American students deserve fair access to American universities. It’s time our institutions prioritize the citizens they were created to serve.”
2. Addressing the Crisis in Higher Education
The Problem: American universities have abandoned their educational mission and become indoctrination centers that actively undermine American values and self-confidence. Beyond the collapse of academic rigor, these institutions now systematically teach students to hate America, blame America first, and cast our nation in the worst possible light. It’s not just that students are learning less—they’re being brainwashed to despise their own country
The Crisis in Numbers
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- Time college students spend studying has dropped 50% since the 1960s
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- In the early 1960s, only 15% of grades were A’s. Today it’s 45%
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- Studies show grade inflation is dramatically worse in humanities than STEM
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- Universities spend only one-third of their budgets on actual instruction. The rest feeds bureaucracy
- In the words of Historical and Economist Richard Vedder, “Never in the annals of history have so many, spent so much, for so long, learning so little.”
The Anti-American Curriculum:
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- Students taught to view America as irredeemably racist and oppressive
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- Western civilization courses eliminated or reframed as studies in colonialism
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- Western civilization courses eliminated or reframed as studies in colonialism and exploitation
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- American history reduced to a litany of sins with no acknowledgment of achievements or ideals
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- Faculty openly promoting hostility to American interests and values
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- Campus culture that punishes patriotism and celebrates America’s enemies
For example: when Harvard students, supported by professors, chant “intifada, intifada come into America,” we witness the grotesque endpoint of decades of anti-American indoctrination. Universities no longer educate—they program students to reject Western civilization, view American history as nothing but oppression, and treat patriotism as a moral failing.
The goal of this indoctrination is clear: break Americans’ self-confidence and belief in their country. Students graduate not with knowledge and skills, but with contempt for their nation, suspicion of their fellow citizens, and certainty that America is the source of the world’s problems. They emerge less capable, less knowledgeable, and actively hostile to the country that provided their education. This isn’t education. It’s cultural suicide. And American taxpayers are funding it
The Bloated DEI Bureaucracy
Today’s universities have become top-heavy administrative behemoths dominated by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucrats whose job is to enforce ideological conformity and root out dissent. These administrators don’t educate, they indoctrinate, police speech, and ensure that anti American messaging permeates every aspect of campus life.
Where Your Tuition Really Goes:
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- Only ~33% on student instruction
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- The remainder funds sprawling DEI bureaucracies, “bias response teams,” political activism, and administrative overhead
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- Administrative positions have exploded while teaching loads remain constant or decrease
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- DEI officers often outnumber faculty in core academic departments
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- These bureaucrats enforce the “blame America first” ideology that has infected campus culture
The Tenure Problem
At the heart of this crisis lies the problem of tenure. Tenure was originally designed to protect academic freedom and independent inquiry. Instead, it has become a shield for professors who abandon rigorous scholarship in favor of political indoctrination. Tenured faculty face no accountability for poor teaching, grade inflation, or using their classrooms for activism rather than education. We need to examine solutions to the tenure problem. We need to find ways to reform tenure to restore accountability while preserving legitimate academic freedom.
Potential Solutions Worth Examining
Multiple approaches deserve serious consideration. We don’t claim to have all the answers, but it is essential that the rot in our educational system be addressed:
One Possible Approach: The RESCUE Act
One potential solution could be the draft Restoring Erudition, Sanity and Confidence in University Education (RESCUE) Act, which would reform federal student aid by limiting eligibility to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs. This approach recognizes that:
• Taxpayers shouldn’t fund anti-American propaganda. Federal dollars must not support programs that teach students to despise their own country
• STEM fields tend to preserve objective truth and rigorous thinking. Mathematics doesn’t lie, and physics doesn’t have a political agenda,
• STEM serves the national interest. America needs engineers, scientists, and mathematicians who can compete globally, not graduates trained in grievance studies and America-hatred
• Students could still pursue non-STEM degrees, but taxpayers wouldn’t be forced to subsidize them
The Demand Side Solution
What makes this STEM-focused approach unique is that it addresses demand rather than supply. Other reform proposals attempt to cajole universities by threatening to withhold funding, or tax endowments. The STEM-only approach is different: American taxpayers are simply declining to subsidize certain programs. Without federal subsidies, demand for these courses becomes market-based. Students who want to pursue non-STEM degrees can still do so, but they’ll pay the actual cost rather than having taxpayers fund it. As fewer subsidized students enroll in anti-American programs, demand naturally dwindles. We’re not censoring anyone or forcing universities to change, we’re just not helping them attract customers. The market will do the rest. However, this is just one possible solution. Other approaches might include tenure reform, limits on administrative bloat, requirements for viewpoint diversity, or other accountability measures. We’re looking at multiple solutions and welcome constructive alternatives.
3. Reforming the Immigration System to Protect American Values
President Trump’s Vision
President Trump recently articulated a bold vision for immigration reform in his Thanksgiving message on X:
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. This represents a fundamental rethinking of immigration policy, one that prioritizes not just numbers, but compatibility with American civilization and values.”
The Core Problem
America has an immigration system that admits people regardless of whether they share American values, contribute to our society, or even intend to assimilate. The results speak for themselves: President Trump notes that the official U.S. foreign population stands at 53 million people, with massive welfare dependency, social dysfunction, and in some cases, active hostility to American values and institutions. But the problem goes deeper than policy failure, it starts with how we raise Americans and what we mean by “American” in the first place.
Raising Americans Who Understand America
Before we can expect immigrants to share American values, we need to be clear about what those values are. This starts at home. Parents need to raise their kids to be Americans, not just citizens by birth, but people who understand and cherish what makes America exceptional. This means:
• Teaching patriotism and civics starting in kindergarten (or even preschool)
• Giving children positive experiences with American traditions and civic participation at young ages
• Instilling an understanding that American values, individual liberty, free speech, free enterprise, rule of law, tolerance and civic participation are worth preserving and defending
• Countering the anti-American messaging that pervades modern education and media
The success of America isn’t found in complicated theories, it’s in these
fundamental values passed from generation to generation. We’ve lost much of this to cultural drift and the internet age, and we need to reclaim it. To that end, the Culture for Peace Institute is proud to sponsor a nationwide patriotic books donation initiative through the acclaimed Heroes of Liberty series. We are placing thousands of beautifully illustrated, premium hardcover and softcover. biographies of great Americans, including Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell, Amy Coney Barrett, Alexander Hamilton, Margaret Thatcher, John Wayne, Douglas MacArthur, and Rush Limbaugh, into schools, libraries, and youth programs at no cost. These books (written for ages 7-12) teach the timeless values of courage, duty, perseverance, leadership, and patriotism through the true stories of men and women who shaped the freest and most prosperous nation in history. By putting these inspiring volumes directly into the hands of the rising generation, we are working to counter anti-American indoctrination and restore pride in the principles that make America worth defending.
Implementing the Vision
As President Trump works to implement his vision, several clever approaches could help him overcome the inevitable legal challenges:
- Begin with targeted restrictions backed by an escalation clause: The Administration could start with country-specific restrictions under 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), but include an automatic escalation provision: if any court enjoins these targeted measures, a universal immigration pause immediately takes effect on the grounds that current fraud rates and welfare system abuse are enormous (a DHS study found 70% of asylum applications involve fraud; 54% of immigrant-headed households receive public assistance despite the fact that you cannot immigrate if you are likely at any time to become a public charge). This forces activist plaintiffs to choose, accept limited measures or trigger total closure.
- Demand injunction bonds if challenged. Federal law requires plaintiffs seeking pre-trial injunctions to post bonds sufficient to cover “costs and damages” if the injunction is later found wrongful. Given that welfare costs to immigrants run over $109 billion annually, proper bonds should be in the tens of millions of dollars. This requirement would make frivolous legal challenges financially prohibitive for activist groups.
- Rescind delegations of green card authority, so the Secretary must personally approve each application, slowing processing to a trickle while simply following the law as written. These approaches would allow the administration to pause problematic immigration flows while the system is reformed to focus on admitting only those who share American values, contribute positively to society, and are compatible with Western Civilization