University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella is in an especially difficult position — having to straddle both roles of being a university president as well as an immigrant and former international student from India — in the face of the White House’s proposed compact that demanded caps on international undergraduate enrollment, higher education experts say.
“It has to be more challenging to be an immigrant working in higher education at this point, even after you’re a U.S. citizen, because there is intense pressure on the (university) administration to reduce immigration in all forms — even threatening one of America’s largest exports, which is higher education,” said Robert Kelchen, head of the department of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee, whose research focuses on how colleges respond to federal policies in higher education.
“I think it’s probably easier for a president who was born in America to speak out. But any president who speaks out too forcefully really runs the risk of the administration acting against them,” Kelchen told the Arizona Daily Star in an interview Thursday. “It’s an even more difficult decision to speak out, because even though an immigrant president would probably know the stakes more than someone who’s not an immigrant, the consequences of speaking up can be real — either at the federal level or the state level.”
On the other hand, Garimella’s personal experience gives him a strong understanding of the value that international students bring, and thus could give him a particular advantage in evaluating the White House compact, said Johann Rafelski, a UA professor of physics from Germany.
“It is to our great advantage in this complex situation to have a UA president who appreciates, in terms of personal experience, all aspects of foreign student engagement and can thus negotiate, using his very detailed know-how of the myriads of issues,” said Rafelski. “This creates for him a position of knowledge, giving him the capability to persuade less subject-experienced government officials. In this matter, I believe and indeed I am convinced that we can rely on President Garimella finding the best path forward for the university.”
The UA was one of nine universities asked by the White House on Oct. 1 to sign onto the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which offered universities priority access to federal funding in exchange for compliance with the Trump administration’s financial, ideological and political agenda. On Oct. 20, Garimella became the seventh university president to reject the compact.
Among its 10-page list of demands, the White House compact specifically asked universities to cap international undergraduate enrollment at 15% overall and at 5% from individual countries.
University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella and his wife, Lakshmi, greet students inside of the Honors Dorms on move-in day in August of this year.
In his response to the White House, Garimella did not address this specific demand, but said the UA “values the rich contributions of international faculty, staff and students who provide numerous intellectual and cultural contributions,” recognizes “potential risks with certain foreign engagements and research security concerns,” and will continue to comply with applicable federal laws.
In a written statement to the Star, Garimella said: “To international students and families who may feel anxious about studying abroad, my message is simple: you are welcome here at the University of Arizona. Our campus is a place where every student can thrive, pursue discovery, and prepare for a meaningful life and career. International students are an integral part of who we are, and we are honored to be part of their journey.”
Garimella declined interview requests and did not answer questions, posed by the Star to his spokesperson, about how difficult the decision of agreeing to or rejecting the compact was from the perspective of his own experience of being an immigrant and an international student decades before, or how different the situation is for international students who come to the U.S. now in comparison to when he came.
‘When you don’t have means,’ education is key
Garimella received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras, India, which he described as “much more intense“ than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a 2022 interview with Seven Days, a weekly newspaper in Vermont. After finishing his undergraduate education at IIT, Garimella received his master’s in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University, followed by a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
In his academia career, he started out as an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, before moving on to Purdue University, where he climbed up the ladder to become executive vice president for research and partnerships. He then went on to become president of the University of Vermont in 2019. From there, he came to the UA as president in October 2024. Now, as UA’s 23rd president, Garimella earns a base salary of $810,000.
India and China are the top countries supplying international students to the U.S. — 29% of international students in the U.S. in 2023-24 were from India, and 25% were from China.
At the UA, about 6% of all students are international, out of which about 21% are from India and 20% are from China. UA’s undergraduate international student percentage is about 3.7%.
Kelchen noted that the UA wouldn’t be affected by the demand to cap international undergraduate enrollment, since its percentage is nowhere near the 15% level. He said a bigger challenge is in getting graduate students, whose visas face pressure under the Trump administration. That’s where there’s even more pressure to speak out currently, he said.
“I think it’s slightly harder for immigrant presidents to speak out, because if someone who went through the process of coming to this country, getting an H-1B visa (a non-immigrant work visa) and becoming a citizen, speaks out, there will be people who respond by saying, ‘These jobs should be for Americans,’” said Kelchen.
“But at the same time, because an immigrant president knows the experience of going through the legal immigration process, they’ll want to do everything they can to support and protect their students, faculty and staff who are going through it. Because they know how challenging and tedious the process is,” he said.
Under the current Trump administration, thousands of international students around the country have had their visas revoked by the Department of Homeland Security, which made them vulnerable to detention, arrest or deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Additionally, the administration has placed travel bans and visa restrictions on numerous countries and subjected potential international students to social media vetting.
UA Chair of the Faculty Leila Hudson said that while the UA is quite far from the compact’s proposed cap of 15% and has declined to sign onto the compact, decisions about enrollment policy are best made according to the growth and development strategies of self-governing universities, rather than through “arbitrary policies dictated by the government.”
“Micromanagement of autonomous institutions competing in a market economy is not the way to go,” Hudson told the Star. “Furthermore, excluding qualified students based on their identity or country of origin violates the spirit of equal and merit-based access to the education opportunities we offer to one and all.”
According to the 2022 Seven Days article, Garimella grew up in the city of Bhopal in central India, where his parents — neither of whom completed college — instilled in him and his two siblings an “all-consuming drive to succeed in school.”
“When you don’t have means, the only thing you can possibly have is education,” Garimella said then.
In the article, Garimella described himself as a gifted student, narrating the story of his first-grade teacher Mrs. Nathaniel saying she would want a kid like him if she ever had one. “It makes you feel special,” Garimella was quoted, “and I was. I was good at class. I was good at many things.” While his advanced education has purely been in technical subjects, including mechanical engineering, Garimella is also a zealous reader who can recite every other page of the classic “Jane Eyre” and was also a part of Purdue’s local chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, the article said.
Zuzana Ceplá Wootson, deputy director of federal policy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, said it must be very difficult for Garimella to make certain decisions while having an even bigger awareness of the contributions that international students make to universities. As a former international student, Wootson said she can understand how difficult the decision must be.
Drop in international students
On the current immigration climate and how it affects future international students like Garimella who wish to come to the U.S. to pursue university degrees, Wootson pointed to a cumulative impact of federal policies — the proposed compact, visa revocations, social media vetting of international students, travel bans, visa rejections, and more.
She said bringing international students to the U.S. ensures that the best and brightest are coming here and using their knowledge and expertise here.
“What we are expecting is to really see a steep drop in new international students coming to the United States, which will, of course, have a great economic impact,” Wootson said. “And we’re going to feel it in local economies and institutions, but not only financially. Oftentimes, we talk about the fact that international students pay full tuition and bring some funds to universities; however, we also need to take into consideration that international students create jobs — three international students create one additional job in the U.S. economy. And for every international student, there are two American student spaces at universities.”
Wootson said that while the U.S. is proposing policies that deter international students from coming here, other countries are investing in welcoming them. She said the U.S. is expecting a drop of 30-40% in new international student enrollment and a drop of 15% in overall international enrollment, which will economically result in a loss of $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 40,000 jobs being lost nationwide.
U.S. immigration data reported by Forbes shows a drop of 44.5% (from 74,825 to 41,540) in international students from India between August 2024 and August 2025. Overall, arrivals of international students, except from Canada and Mexico, declined by 19.2% (from 380,579 to 307,419) in that period.
Kelchen said there’s much uncertainty about how the Trump administration’s actions will affect higher education.
“It’s entirely possible that the president sends out a social media decree stating that all students from China or India can no longer come to the United States, or that he states that certain universities cannot host international students,” said Kelchen. “The best-case scenario for higher education is likely a small decrease in the number of students, but a complete elimination of international students is within the realm of possibility.”
Gary Rhoades, a UA professor of higher education, said Garimella’s international background and network make him well-positioned to understand the threat that the compact poses, in Rhoades’ view, to the excellence of U.S. higher education.
“In the post WWII era, the U.S. has been globally pre-eminent, if not dominant, in its openness to welcoming and attracting international students and scholars to work in an environment where they have academic freedom and opportunity,” said Rhoades.
“The so-called compact, along with other policies and practices of this federal administration are already undercutting America as being a first choice for international talent,” he said, “and other countries are stepping in to take advantage of that opportunity to outcompete the U.S. for excellence.”
