Even if it's only short term for the duration of their studies, it seems quite unfair to expect students who have setup in the US to return back to their home country for a term or two when they might well then have to come back to the US again the following year.

Would you like to lose money because the US Government decided to kick out students for no good reason?

> Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in your country

That may be true, but that's not what F1 is made for, by design.

There's an added benefit to Trump of punishing universities for their continued pushback against much of his goals (e.g. Title IX lawsuits, harboring undocumented people/not complying with ICE).

I'd say the average American does not hope this, no. Foreign students are driving up the cost of tuition as they're usually quite wealthy and displace seats for underprivileged Americans, especially in state-run schools.

I don't know why someone would come to the US to study other than the hopes of immigrating. There are better schools in Europe and elsewhere that are much cheaper or even free.

On the off chance we actually face some sort of shortage of critical skills, there are other visas for that.

An uncited, flimsy excuse. Most universities could function just fine without out of state students, but that might result in a cutback of some of the wasteful spending these institutions create.

In any case, the seats are a finite quantity. Most public universities in the US have competitive admissions. Guess who's not getting admitted in place of students on visas? That's right, the most underprivileged parts of our society, which is why I said seats.