Luanna, a Chinese Student, graduating from the class of 2025 at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, just made America and Humanity Great again.
Current premium viewers: 189
“She made my day,” ETN Ambassador in Germany, Burkhard Herbote, said after speaking with a Chinese Harvard University Student, Jiany Yurong, also known as Luanna.
International Students from around the world are also contributing significantly to the U.S. travel and tourism industry. For decades, Harvard University, despite its high tuition fees, has been one of the most prestigious universities and has contributed significantly to the economic success of Universities in the United States, making the country a preferred destination for international students.
International Students in the United States
In the 2023-2024 academic year, the United States hosted a record-high 1,126,690 international students at its colleges and universities, representing 5.9% of the total U.S. student population. This number marks a 7% increase from the previous year. It is expected that there will be a sharp decrease due to the restrictions imposed by the current administration. International students in the United States typically spend between $20,000 and $50,000 per year, depending on various factors.
New Restrictions on International Students in the U.S.
With VISA restrictions, the threat of Immigration Enforcement Officers (ICE) lining up “alien” students for arrest and possible deportation has many international students afraid.
Restrictions on free speech and broadly accusing students of being anti-Semitic when they voice an opinion will cause a downturn for universities in the United States and the businesses associated with them. The authorities’ tendency to generalize illegal activities by a few and impose corporate punishment has become a significant concern.
The cut in federal funding is another hurdle to maintaining the quality standard for such universities, and the current U.S. administration has particularly hard hit Harvard University under President Trump.
Harvard University
Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, and to developing leaders who make a difference globally.
The reason Luanna was singled out was because she was honored to speak to the class of 2025, congratulating her fellow students and sharing her experience in Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She Didn’t Mention President Trump
Luanna delivered a superb speech. She didn’t mention Trump, but still, she diplomatically illustrated between the lines with simple examples what Harvard stands for:
She emphasized that, in addition to the expertise of all disciplines across the various faculties, students are also taught humanity, fairness, and intercultural cooperation, which is not about the “might of the strongest.
Luanna agreed to be featured in an interview by a German television channel when speaking to eTN ambassador Herbote. German Students study in the United States in large numbers, spending significant money on tuition, housing, travel, and tourism.
This is what Luanna told her fellow Harvard University students, the class of 2025:
Last summer, while I was interning in Mongolia, I received a call from two classmates in Tanzania. They had a very urgent question: how to use their washing machine, because all the labels were in Chinese, and Google kept translating a big button as “Spinning Ghost Mode.”
There we were: An Indian and a Thai calling me, a Chinese in Mongolia, to decipher a washer in Tanzania. And we all study together here at Harvard.
That moment reminds me of something I used to believe when I was a kid: that the world was becoming a small village. I recall being told that we would be the first generation to end hunger and poverty for humanity.
My program at Harvard is International Development. It was built on this exact beautiful vision that humanity rises and falls as one.
When I met my 77 classmates from 34 countries, the countries I had only known as colorful shapes on a map came to life as real people, with laughter, dreams, and the perseverance to survive the long winter in Cambridge. We danced through each other’s traditions, and carried the weight of each other’s worlds. Global challenges suddenly felt personal.
If there’s a woman anywhere in the world who can’t afford a period pad, it makes me poorer. Suppose a girl skips school out of fear of harassment, which threatens my dignity. If a little boy dies in a war that he didn’t start and never understood, part of me dies with him.
But today, that promise of a connected world is giving way to division, fear, and conflict. We’re starting to believe that people who think differently, vote differently, or pray differently—whether they’re across the ocean or sitting right next to us — are not just wrong. We mistakenly see them as evil.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
What I’ve gained most from Harvard isn’t just calculus and regression analysis. It’s to sit with discomfort. Listen deeply. And stay soft in hard times.
Our enemies are human.
If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: Those we label as enemies—they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own. In the end, we don’t rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go.
So, Class of 2025, when the world feels stuck in Spinning Ghost Mode, remember:
As we leave this campus, we carry with us everyone we’ve met, across the divide of wealth and poverty, cities and villages, faith and doubt.
They speak different languages, dream other dreams, and yet—they’ve all become part of us. You may disagree with them, but hold onto them, as we are bound by something more profound than belief: Our shared humanity.
Congratulations, Class of 2025!
