Why prospective Columbia students are thinking twice about attending

Columbia University is losing the trust of current and prospective students from all around the globe. For years, the school has been seen as one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, especially for international and immigrant students. But recent events have made many prospective students rethink whether they will apply and attend. 

Earlier this year, the university reportedly shared student information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, leading to the detention and visa cancellation of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and U.S. green card holder. Khalil’s involvement in the Gaza solidarity encampments on Columbia’s campus reportedly triggered the investigation. He was arrested by ICE in the lobby of his university housing without prior notice or legal support from the university. Columbia’s silence, even as Khalil was denied temporary release for the birth of his child, shows how little the administration is willing to fight for its students. 

What happened with Khalil was not an isolated incident. Ranjani Srinivasan, a fifth-year Indian doctoral candidate in urban planning at Columbia, faced a similar ordeal. Her visa was revoked without warning and she was forced to flee the United States after ICE agents visited her apartment multiple times. Rather than answering her questions and allowing her to stay enrolled, which would allow Srinivasan to hold legal residency status, the university's response was to terminate her enrollment, leaving her vulnerable to ICE detention. 

In stark contrast to Columbia’s behavior, Harvard University has taken a firm stand against similar federal overreach on its campus. When faced with demands to share information on foreign national students, Harvard officials refused to comply, citing constitutional concerns. As a result, President Donald Trump’s administration froze hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to the school. 

Amidst graduation season and future planning, JoySauce sat down with three Asian American prospective students who were accepted into Columbia for the upcoming fall 2025 semester, and have had to make an important decision on whether they’ll be attending or not. For these students, it is no longer about rankings or reputation, it's about whether they still trust the institution with their futures. In sharing their stories, they have asked to remain anonymous. To protect their privacy JoySauce has changed or abbreviated their names.

A protective faculty

Esha B., a New Yorker who’s been living and teaching at a public school in Manhattan for years, applied to Columbia to further her studies and was accepted to a program in the school’s Teachers College. As a prospective doctoral student and full-time high school teacher, she’s been thinking deeply about whether to join Columbia amid the ongoing unrest. “I’ve always wanted to go into research,” she explains, “and Columbia’s program was one of the few that supports part-time students like me.” Other universities in the city wouldn’t allow her to keep her full-time job. But the timing of her acceptance coincided with the university’s crackdown on student protesters and it gave her pause. “The administration just started falling apart, not protecting students, and I was already feeling a little weird about it,” she says.

Still, the program itself felt uniquely aligned with her values. “At the doctoral level, the main question is: Are the faculty around me willing to protect me?” she asks. Esha B. admits the choice still weighs heavily on her, but she ultimately will be attending this upcoming fall. “It’s hard to join at a time like this,” she says. “But I’ve spent a lot of time researching the faculty just to make sure it aligns with what I care about.”

Mismatching values and actions

Mira J. was accepted into Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and still hasn’t decided whether she’ll be attending or not. She’s been studying within the field of health care for quite some time and dreamt of going to a school that would support her ambition and studies. For her, the allure of Columbia isn’t just the prestige. It’s about the location, the network she would be enmeshed in, and impact of her work. “I’m just a nerd. I love learning,” she explains. “I've been waiting for that intellectual space where I can push myself.”

But the reality of the university in 2025 complicates everything. She’s thought about the university’s long history of gentrification in Harlem, the recent crackdowns on student protesters, and its role in upholding elite power structures, all while they publicly claim to teach advocacy and equity. “How is the same institution doing all this and also promising to teach me these values?” she asks, confused. Her ultimate choice on whether she’ll be a part of Mailman’s class of 2027 will end up being as much about integrity as it is about survival and growth; financially, emotionally, and within her field.

Safety, integrity and a history of displacement

Raga M. however, is on the other end of the spectrum. Though she was accepted into two master’s programs at Columbia, she ultimately declined both offers due to a deep mistrust in the university’s administration. “I’ve been hesitant for a while,” she tells JoySauce, “but the final straw was Columbia turning over Mahmoud and other students.” As a longtime student activist who participated in Black Lives Matter and pro-Palestinian protests during undergrad, she has never feared institutional retaliation until now. “These are students whose identities already put them at risk, and Columbia just made that danger real,” she says, referencing the school administration’s targeting of brown Muslim students.

In an email to the university turning down her admission, she wrote plainly: “I do not feel safe attending a school that persecutes and endangers its students due to political beliefs, coincidentally only endangering its brown-skinned Muslim students and protecting the white student body.” For her, this wasn't just about safety, it was also about institutional integrity. “Freedom of expression should be encouraged in education,” she emphasizes. And as someone pursuing climate and urban design through a lens of equity, she found the university’s role in historically displacing Harlem residents indefensible. “I just don’t morally align with a university that claims it’s for progress and then takes from the community,” she says.