Chinese students blast U of A for closing campuses under GOP pressure

Students in China have written letters to the University of Arizona pleading that they were “mercilessly abandoned” by the university due to the opinions of one political party in a single congressional committee, and accusing the UA of breaking a contract through “discriminatory intent against Chinese students.”

The students and faculty of four micro-campuses the UA shuttered last month in China also criticize the abruptness of the decision, and say the options the UA is offering students to finish their degrees — including transferring to the Tucson campus — are not financially viable.

A UA vice president responded in a Faculty Senate meeting. “It is important to underscore the fact that the University of Arizona has terminated these institutional relationships in China. We did not terminate the students,” Vice President and Dean of International Education Jenny Lee told a room full of faculty leaders, administrators and students in Tucson on Monday.

“I want to emphasize that this decision in no way lessens our dedication to Chinese students in our international community, or our international students, more broadly,” Lee said. “Chinese students, staff, faculty and alumni remain an integral part of the U of A and their contributions continue to enrich our campus. It’s not been an easy decision nor a simple decision, but I do believe this is the right one as we maintain our support for our UA students while aligning with federal expectations.”

The closure was announced on Sept. 22, after the UA was named in a Sept. 11 report from the Republican majority on the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. The report stated the UA and other universities had “high-risk partnerships” with Chinese partner institutions that should end because they “facilitate technology transfer and pose national security risks.”

The UA’s closures will affect 2,200 students, 36 faculty and four staff members. The employees in China who will be moving back to the U.S. will be given financial support for relocation, UA spokesperson Mitch Zak has said.

Professor: Program advanced US interests

Timothy Horley, a UA global professor of practice who taught in UA’s law program with the Ocean University of China, said the program taught Chinese students about the American legal system and concepts such as due process of law, equal protection, separation of powers and freedom of speech.

Teaching the next generation of Chinese leaders to understand and appreciate the rule of law advances American interests, he said, speaking at the Monday Faculty Senate meeting.

“I have not heard one person articulate any reason why a program teaching such concepts to Chinese students hurts American interests,” Horley said. “The university’s callous decision to abandon our students and partners is going to cost money, not save it.

“So, instead of making millions of dollars (from the micro-campuses), the university has decided it’s going to potentially pay millions of dollars in fees and legal judgments so that they could abruptly shut us down. And ‘abruptly’ is the right word. Less than a week passed between the release of the select committee report and the complete termination of a 10-year-old program,” he said.

Lee said the university’s decision was made after considering the report and the broader implications suggested by the federal government.

“This involved senior leadership meetings with affected deans and then immediate notifications to the former university partners in China, affected department heads, employees whose appointments would be coming to an end, and affected students,” said Lee. “Shared governance leaders were immediately informed, and we also sought to ensure and provide reassurance to members of our Chinese community here in Tucson.”

Students: ‘Opinions of a partisan subset’

Students from the joint law program between the UA and Ocean University of China (OUC) have written two letters to UA faculty members since the closure.

“The report was issued by the ‘staff majority’ of Congressional Select Committee, whose role is to study special matters and provide policy recommendations to Congress. Their views represent neither the views of the full bipartisan Select Committee, nor the views of Congress, nor the views of the federal government, but rather a small group of approximately a dozen partisan individuals,” said the UA-OUC Joint Law Program Student Rights Committee. The UA-OUC joint law program, established in 2015, was the first of UA’s micro-campuses in China.

“We are deeply troubled that President (Suresh) Garimella misconstrues the opinions of a partisan subset of research committee members as binding ‘U.S. government expectations’; this suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of American governmental structure — a basic concept that should be well understood by a university president.”

UA spokesperson Zak did not respond to these statements.

In comparison to the U.S. House Select Committee report, the law students pointed to statements made by U.S. President Donald Trump in August, in which he praised Chinese students several times and said he welcomes 600,000 Chinese students to study in the United States. In their letters, the students asked Garimella which statements he chooses to believe — between “cherry-picked, inapplicable statements” from the report, or Trump’s own public statements — as representing the views of Congress and the official U.S. government position on joint partnerships like theirs.

At the Monday meeting, Lee listed the steps the UA had taken since the closure, including: She and Provost Patricia Prelock hosted a meeting with the UA Faculty of Chinese Heritage Association to hear their concerns and suggestions; partnering with undergraduate and graduate student leadership groups in outreach to Chinese students here on UA’s main campus; and Arizona International, the UA’s global program, holding in-person sessions in China for its enrolled students to further explain their options for completing their degrees and to answer their questions.

UA: Continued access to degrees

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UA Provost Patricia Prelock told the Arizona Daily Star in an interview Sept. 29 that the students will now get single UA degrees as opposed to dual degrees with the Chinese partner universities. Prelock said students who wish to come to UA’s main campus will be offered the in-state Arizona tuition rate for up to four semesters, so it’s more affordable for them.

“Moving forward, the university is treating these dual-degree students as single-degree students, as we identify pathways for them to continue here on campus as well as online,” Lee elaborated at Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

“We’re also offering online continuation options to the extent to which departments are able,” Lee said. “The cost for these programs to complete their degrees online is not expected to exceed the cost of the micro-campus tuition that the families and parents have prepared for.”

The law students’ letter said the UA-OUC contract stated that either university in the former partnerships must give written notice 90 days prior to termination. By contrast, the UA closed its micro-campuses just two days before classes began and “demanded” that all professors leave China immediately, the letter said.

The closure “has severely disrupted our normal academic life and future educational plans, directly affecting the value of our degrees and our professional career prospects, causing us significant anxiety about our future,” the students wrote.

The letter said studying at UA’s main campus would increase the students’ costs by “anywhere between $40,000 to $100,000 to obtain a UA degree — an incredible sum for any family.”

“And the online course option is asking additional unreasonable fees. Students have already paid tuition to UA annually,” the students wrote. “If this is the course of action UA demands, any previously paid tuition must either be refunded or credited to offset any online fees UA has added unilaterally here.”

UA spokesperson Zak did not answer the Star’s questions, including if UA professors at the micro-campuses were asked to immediately cease all classes and return to the U.S. and whether this move violates UA’s contracts on giving a 90-day notice.

Zak previously said the UA’s action was “acknowledging a congressional directive.”

The Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce has praised the UA’s decision in a post on X, saying: the Chinese Communist Party “uses these programs to steal cutting-edge research for its own military buildup and promote communist ideology. These programs are a direct threat to U.S. national security. Every American school should follow suit and end agreements with the CCP.”

Group: Design ‘a secure micro-campus 2.0’

A student representative group in the Arizona College of Technology at Hebei University of Technology, another UA China micro-campus, also wrote a letter to the university.

In this letter as well, students asked the UA to reverse its decision and to continue to fulfill the terms of their agreement for the remainder of this academic year and beyond, and to guarantee that current students, including freshmen, can complete their studies without unexpected financial or academic burdens.

In an email Sept. 30, faculty members with the Arizona College of Technology at Hebei University of Technology also urged Garimella to reverse the decision.

The letter asked the UA to convene a task force with faculty input to design a “Secure micro-campus 2.0” that complies with legislation in the U.S. House called “Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act,” which aims to prevent STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) federal funding from going to researchers who collaborate with China’s military, among others.

“We propose instead a regulated expansion of these programs as a viable solution that aligns with national priorities and preserves UA’s global leadership,” wrote Philip Nash, executive vice dean of the Arizona College of Technology at Hebei University of Technology.

“President Trump’s recent call to double Chinese student enrollment at U.S. universities aims to boost tuition revenue and economic impact, estimated at $90 billion annually. However, direct U.S. enrollment faces visa barriers and security scrutiny, as evidenced by a 28% visa denial rate in July 2025,” Nash wrote.

The petition, signed by Nash and 11 faculty members with the micro-campus, requested a response from Garimella by Oct. 12 and a public forum.

“Our micro-campuses, serving over 2,200 students and generating $25 million yearly offer a proven alternative: students earn UA-accredited degrees in China, counting toward enrollment goals without relocation costs for students ($55,000/year in Tucson, unaffordable for most). Expanding these programs with enhanced oversight could add thousands more students, securing significant revenue while mitigating risks,” Nash wrote.

Miranda Pasquarella, a global professor at one of the micro-campuses, said her original contract is now cut short and will end in January 2026. She told the Star that when she learned of the closures and consequent loss of her job, she mourned her stable income and sense of security only for a few hours.

“But the next morning, I woke up with many new emotions I didn’t expect to feel. Among the strongest were anger and shame. Anger that the University of Arizona could do something so cowardly. And shame that I agreed to work for such an institution,” Pasquarella said.

“When UA chose to blindly accept the report that told them to shut down the China campuses, I felt very disappointed. How could they give in without putting up a fight? How could they not even attempt to take responsibility for those students? ... If the University of Arizona is so easily able to abandon its students, its promises, its sense of responsibility, then this is an institution I can easily part ways with and have no regrets.”