When campuses shut down overnight because of the Covid-19 pandemic, colleges scrambled to move classes online. But what began as an emergency measure has become a core part of the American academic experience.

Now, a new political reality makes the case for scaling online education even more urgent. The Trump administration has pressured universities to , frozen visa interviews in key countries and introduced new social media screening rules for international applicants, slowing approvals. It has also moved to deport students for political activism or infractions and has imposed controversial restrictions?on particular institutions, such as Columbia University, obliging them to reduce international student numbers, among other things.

As a result of all this, NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, projects that international enrolment could drop by between ¨C a potential .

For many small, tuition-dependent colleges already operating on thin margins, even a modest downturn in international enrolment can be an existential threat. Ratings agencies and sector analysts have ?among regional privates; , most of them small and tuition-dependent. And researchers modelling the coming enrolment declines estimate that a would increase annual college closures, with the sharpest declines doubling the historic closure rate ¨C on top of the now peaking.

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This is not just an education issue; it is an economic competitiveness issue. International students fuel research, innovation and tuition revenue. have a founder who first came here as an international student.

Although?university leaders can¡¯t lean on policymakers to enable international students to attend classes in person, they can work together to help keep these students engaged with the US by supporting high-quality online pathways. Done right, distance learning can be one of higher education¡¯s most powerful growth engines ¨C and be a gateway to higher-level onshore study and post-study work.

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A recent of nearly 5,000 US colleges and universities found that even a 1 per cent increase in online course offerings corresponds to an average of 7,964 additional students enrolling nationwide. After the pandemic, that number grew to 9,361. In an industry where many institutions have been battling , these numbers are hugely significant.

The reasons are clear: online learning breaks down barriers that have excluded students for decades. A working parent in rural Montana, an aspiring engineer in Lagos or a military spouse who relocates every year can now all participate in US higher education from their living rooms.

But the same study also delivered a warning: more isn¡¯t always better. When?two-thirds or more of a college¡¯s students are enrolled exclusively online?during a crisis ¨C or more than 90 per cent in normal times ¨C enrolment growth plateaus and can even decline. That¡¯s because over-saturation brings new problems: reduced student engagement, weaker peer connections and technological strain ¨C everything from overloaded learning-management systems and videoconferencing at peak times to cybersecurity exposure and uneven connectivity.

You might think that the threshold for over-saturation would be higher during a crisis such as Covid, given the needs-must mentality that people adopt. But the rapid pivot to online-only instruction during Covid limited opportunities for appropriate course redesign and instructor training, and it raised particular issues with accessibility and assessment integrity. As a result, student engagement falls off, and additional online offerings yields smaller ¨C and sometimes negative ¨C enrolment returns.

This underlines the importance of strategy. Universities shouldn¡¯t just ¡°go online¡± ¨C they need to design digital learning ecosystems that maximise reach without sacrificing quality. A shows that blended approaches outperform purely face-to-face on average when courses are well-designed, but faculty need sustained professional development in digital pedagogy: course design with clear learning outcomes; regular and substantive interaction; accessible materials; authentic assessment; and low-bandwidth alternatives for learners with constrained internet.

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At the same time, institutions must strengthen online student services (advising, tutoring, library access, mental health support and career services) as well as ensure that platforms perform reliably across time zones. confirm that these are now core differentiators of quality but also highlight gaps in provision ¨C especially of wraparound support for fully online students.

Some universities are already adapting. The Harvard Graduate School of Education recently launched its fully online pathway, enabling experienced educators worldwide to study part-time while continuing their careers. Columbia University¡¯s Teachers College has likewise introduced an for working educators and policy leaders.

For domestic learners, federal and state policymakers have a role to play, funding broadband expansion and providing subsidies for devices, especially in low-income and rural areas. For students abroad, universities need complementary strategies: low-bandwidth course design, asynchronous access and platforms that perform well wherever they are accessed from.

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We have been here before, of course. In the early 2010s, the hype around Massive Open Online Course (Moocs) promised to ¡°democratise¡± education but many initiatives fizzled as a result of low completion rates and lack of meaningful interaction. The lesson is clear: scale alone doesn¡¯t guarantee success ¨C intentional design, student support and quality matter most.

Distance learning is not a silver bullet but it is a proven tool for reversing enrolment declines and widening access. The challenge ¨C and opportunity ¨C for higher ed leaders and policymakers is to grow it enough to capture its enrolment benefits but not so much that we dilute the very qualities that make higher education worth pursuing.

If we get the balance right, we can build a system more inclusive, adaptable and resilient than anything we had before the pandemic ¨C and one as well paced as possible to weather both domestic demographic decline and political clampdowns on internationalisation.

?is an instructor of record and PhD student in comparative and international education at Columbia University.

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