Pitzer College, one of the nation’s top Fulbright producers, has been uniquely impacted by the Trump administration’s attack on international programs in the Trump-era shift towards America-first foreign policy and mass federal budget cuts.
On Feb. 13, 2025, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) enacted a 15-day temporary pause on all grant funding disbursements.
“This effectively suspends international education and exchange programs, including Fulbright, the Gilman Scholarship program, the IDEAS program, and the Critical Language Scholarship Program,” an announcement by the NAFSA: Association of International Educators stated.
Recently, however, the ECA has repaid 85 percent of withheld funds, a promising bellwether. Nonetheless, two months without funding and continued spending cuts have left students, current and prospective, uncertain.
This uncertainty grew on March 13, when the Institute for International Education (IIE), the administrative body for Fulbright, furloughed non-essential staff, maintaining “limited program staff to carry out essential administrative responsibilities.”
At Pitzer, which sees a high volume of students apply to the Fulbright program, the community has been uniquely impacted. The Fulbright program is the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the United States government. Now, the future of this program could be in jeopardy.
Pitzer College has taken great strides to make international cultural exchange a cornerstone of the college experience, naming intercultural understanding a core value and supporting 53 percent of the student body to study abroad, compared to the national average of two percent.
Pitzer has flagship study abroad programs in Brazil, Costa Rica, Italy, Nepal, Southern Africa, Brazil and Vietnam, which provide many students with the connections and experiences that they need to substantiate Fulbright profiles.
Pitzer maintains its commitment on campus, requiring classes that engage in intercultural understanding globally and locally and integrating Fulbright into the curriculum through the Global Local Research Workshop, a half-credit seminar where students are guided through the development of proposals, personal statements and other items required for a nomination.
This commitment has earned Pitzer national recognition as a top producer of Fulbright students for the past 15 years. Nine students were awarded fellowships in the 2023-24 cycle, and have been closely watching policy change while starting their research.
Among these Fulbrighters is Ava Francis-Hall PZ ’24 who has been conducting research on chronic kidney disease and dialysis access in rural communities with the National Kidney Center in Nepal.
She became interested in Nepal after spending a semester in Kathmandu through “Pitzer in Nepal.” Her cohort has been in close contact, gleaning most of their information from the Fulbright Reddit community.
“I found out about the IIE firings from Reddit,” Francis-Hall said. “Somebody who worked at IIE was like, ‘Hey everyone, by the way, we’re being laid off, I think we’re only working for the next three days, if you have any matters that you need to discuss with us you should send those emails, contact us right away.’”
Fortunately for Francis-Hall, her funding is already secured. Nonetheless, reliance on Reddit in the face of continuing institutional uncertainty has become a reality for some individuals participating in Fulbright.
Francis-Hall will still be able to present her findings to the Nepalese government, taking active steps to improve the quality of life of people suffering from chronic kidney disease, but she said that she is hurt by the possibility of being one of the last cohorts of Fulbrighters.
“It’s just really cool, getting to see what people’s niche interests are and how they’d go about exploring that in another country,” Francis-Hall said. “Seeing their passion for other countries and where that passion stemmed from. It would just be really devastating to see that cut off for no good reason.”
Back in the United States, no longer guaranteed funding, Fulbright applicants and organizers have been stuck in waiting. According to outgoing Pitzer Fulbright Director Nigel Boyle and Director of Fellowships Noosha Malek, 45 Pitzer students and alumni have been selected as semi-finalists for Fulbright awards.
“There’s a lot of people waiting,” Boyle said. “In a normal year, we’d be hoping at least half of those would win awards, but everyone is just waiting. That’s really the best we can do right now.”
In the standard cycle, semifinalists hear as early as late February and as late as June, but the funding freeze has resulted in a lack of news.
“Nigel [Boyle] is a semifinalist for a Scholar Award,” Malek said. “I’m a semifinalist for an international education award, we’re in it as well. To our many students that I know want to set their post-graduate plans, they deserve to know and I believe decisions will come out. It’s just that we have to practice resilience and patience and wait.”
Tania Azhang PZ ’25 is one of Pitzer’s 45 finalists. If selected, she would engage in anthropological studies of different Muslim subgroups in Paris, France, and examine how they practice Islam.
“In December, I was notified of my semifinalist status,” Azhang said. “That is the only communication I’ve received from Fulbright just this year in general. Since then, Noosha Malek told us that this year’s cycle is going to be delayed because of the funding freeze.”
Since then, Azhang said that she has also relied on Reddit and watched the news carefully, but that she is worried about the cultural cost of America isolating its students. Like Francis-Hall, she discovered her area of research for Fulbright during her time abroad, and is worried about a future where students cannot grow their cultural understanding due to a lack of firsthand experience in new environments.
“I very keenly felt how ignorant Americans are of international politics, not only that, but Americans … we already feel really separate from the international community,” Azhang said. “But that sheltering [means] that we know so much less, we feel so much less, we feel less empathy for and understanding of the international community.”
As these semifinalists continue to wait, Malek and Boyle argue that the education and the values offered by Pitzer’s commitment to intercultural understanding are of significant importance now, and that students should be steeled to continue working in the face of adversity.
“There’s a lot of advocacy taking place nationally, and it’s the line of work that I’m in, and I refuse to give up and feel pessimistic about it in any way,” Malek said. “The U.S. plays such an important role globally in every sense, and so I think we need to just keep pushing forward.”
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