First, I should have listened to my family weeks earlier when they asked me to come home.

Second, I needed to fly out ASAP.

In one week, I went from being an English teaching assistant living in northeastern France to fleeing the country amid the rapid spread of COVID-19.

My brother, Brett, and my mom had been pressuring me to return home for the previous two weeks, but I assured them that I was still safe and had a job to do.

Then, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the closure of all schools and universities. On Friday the 13th.

Again, my family advised me to return home. And again, I stubbornly insisted that I would be safer self-isolating in France than I would be traveling through crowded airports and packed flights where the virus could spread freely.

“Let me book you a flight home,” my brother said over the phone. “I’d feel a lot better if you were here, and I don’t want you getting stuck in France if the situation there gets worse.”

I relented and let him book me a flight for the following weekend. We decided it would be best for me to stay with him in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, instead of with my parents, both in their 50s, in Macon, Georgia.

I wasn’t entirely convinced I’d be returning home to the States within the week, but I went along with the plan.

I ended up flying out the next morning.

I was on the phone with my brother when a text arrived from a friend with the headline that President Macron was in talks with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU officials to close borders. A coworker texted and warned me that she heard that all air travel would soon be suspended.

I thanked my coworker for the heads up and started packing my suitcases.

That night, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France, along with the rest of the European Union, had elected to halt all air travel entering and departing from the Schengen free passage zone. The suspension was to go into effect the following day at noon. I searched for flights departing from Paris the following morning.

After several failed attempts, I managed to book a flight leaving 13 hours later. I made a cup of coffee and hurried to cram the rest of my clothes and books into my suitcases. At 3 a.m., I made more coffee: I couldn’t risk falling asleep and missing my train. Finally, around 5:30 a.m., I dragged my two loaded suitcases, duffel bag, and backpack half a mile to the station to take the first train to Charles de Gaulle airport and thanked my hosts for everything. The farewells felt hollow.

“This doesn’t feel real,” my friend, whose family I had grown used to visiting every weekend, told me. I agreed with him. Even now, I am struggling to understand how things turned out like this.

The airport was chaos. Thousands of frantic travelers in masks were pinballing off one another as they raced through the terminal and seethed in sluggish lines. I rushed to print my boarding pass, fumbled through crowds with my unwieldy luggage and waited more than two hours to drop off my bags.

Another 45 minutes to pass through security. It became obvious that I was going to miss my flight, but I raced up escalators and down the long terminals to get to my gate as soon as possible. When I arrived, the woman working at the gate looked up at me with a pitying expression.

I was lucky, and she got me on one of the last flights out of France to the U.S.

Postscript: After a seemingly endless two days of stumbling through airports, finding out my baggage was sent to Los Angeles and waiting overnight in the atrium of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, to catch a 7 a.m. flight to New Orleans, I have arrived to an uncertain future.

I sit in self-quarantine at my brother’s house and worry that the telltale symptoms will appear any day now. But for the moment, I can only be patient and hope for the best. If I do fall sick, I will be thankful to not have an ocean between my family and me.

American Luke Felty was an English teaching assistant living in northeastern France. He graduated Colgate University in New York in 2018. Please visit us on Facebook for more content about university students around the world.

It’s tough to gain admission to Yale University, and it’s getting even tougher for international students as standout students from around the world set their sights on Yale.

The Yale Dale News, the campus newspaper, takes a look at the situation here.

Read the full story here.

Ruth Chane, a computer science major from Ethiopia, writes about her experiences settling into student life at Whitman College in the U.S. state of Washington.

"The community at Whitman College made sure I felt welcomed even before I stepped foot on campus," she says.

Read her essay here.

In The Student Life, the student newspaper for the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of five liberal art colleges and two graduate schools in Claremont, California, student Rochelle Lu writes about readjusting to her Shanghai home after spending a semester in the United States.

Read the full story here.

Cedarville University in the U.S. state of Ohio says it’s got more than 140 international students representing 44 countries.

Here, the school interviews Jonathan Sutton, director of international student services. He talks about his job and the opportunities for international students on campus.

Read the full article here.

Morehouse College, a private, historically Black liberal arts college in the U.S. state of Georgia, offers a guide for international students interested in attending the school.

Among the tips to apply and thrive at Morehouse:

• Take advantage of the school’s orientation program
• Turn to the school’s Center for Academic Success for tutoring, support and more
• Immerse yourself in campus life via clubs and societies

Read the full article here.

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

The Times of India breaks down the most popular subjects for international students to study in the U.S.

STEM and business lead the pack. Read the full story here. (January 2025)

U.S. News & World report addresses some of the misconceptions about U.S. colleges and universities, including the difficulty of getting a visa.

Read the full story here. (January 2025)

A British student who did a year abroad at Bowling Green State University in Ohio talks about adjusting to life in America in a TikTok video, Newsweek magazine reports.

Among the biggest surprises? Portion sizes, jaywalking laws and dorm room beds.

Read the full story here. (December 2024)

Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health reaches out to international students by detailing the international student experience at the school.

Learn more about housing, life in Boston and more here.

China issued its first national action plan to build a "strong education nation" by 2035, which it said would help coordinate its education development, improve efficiencies in innovation and build a "strong country."

The plan, issued Sunday by the Communist Party's central committee and the State Council, aims to establish a "high quality education system" with accessibility and quality "among the best in the world."

The announcement was made after data on Friday showed China's population fell for a third consecutive year in 2024, with the number of deaths outpacing a slight increase in births, and experts cautioning that the downturn will worsen in the coming years.

High childcare and education costs have been a key factor for many young Chinese opting out of having children, at a time when many face uncertainty over their job prospects amid sluggish economic growth.

"By 2035, an education power will be built," the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that China would explore gradually expanding the scope of free education, increase "high-quality" undergraduate enrolment, expand postgraduate education, and raise the proportion of doctoral students.

The plan aims to promote "healthy growth and all-round development of students," making sure primary and secondary school students have at least two hours of physical activity daily, to effectively control the myopia, or nearsightedness, and obesity rates.

"Popularizing" mental health education and establishing a national student mental health monitoring and early warning system would also be implemented, it said.

It also aims to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas to improve the operating conditions of small-scale rural schools and improve the care system for children with disabilities and those belonging to agricultural migrant populations.

The plan also aims to steadily increase the supply of kindergarten places and the accessibility of preschool education.

The Open Notebook, a site focusing on educating journalists who cover science, has complied a list of U.S. graduate program financial aid information for international students.

Read it here.