For years, restrictive student visa policies in the U.S. have been a drag on college enrollment among international students. President Donald Trump’s proposed “gold card” could change that for some wealthy college hopefuls.

While the details of the initiative remain unclear, experts say the gold card visa program could offer these students from overseas a path to citizenship in return for $5 million.

“Over the past 24 hours, we received an unusual influx of inquiries from students in China, Korea and India because of Trump’s gold card visa,” Christopher Rim, president and CEO of college consulting firm Command Education, said Thursday, two days after Trump first floated the idea.

“Now these wealthy international students have a clear path of staying in the country after graduation,” he said.

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Currently, there are more than 1.1 million international undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S., mostly from India and China, making up slightly less than 6% of the total U.S. higher education population, according to the latest Open Doors data, released by the U.S. Department of State and the Institute of International Education.

“It’s a relatively small cohort but these policies can have great value,” said Robert Franek, editor-in-chief of The Princeton Review.

International enrollment is an important source of revenue for schools like New York University and Columbia University, which is why colleges tend to admit more foreign students, who typically pay full tuition, according to Franek. 

“We know those students are incredibly attractive because they are not applying for financial aid,” he said.

In fact, “more than 95% of four-year colleges in the U.S. are tuition driven,” Franek said. “For schools dependent on students paying tuition, we know this [visa option] is going to be a benefit.”

Altogether, international student enrollment contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 academic year, according to a separate report by NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Higher education already costs more than most families can afford, and college costs are still rising. 

Tuition and fees plus room and board for a four-year private college averaged $58,600 in the 2024-25 school year, up from $56,390 a year earlier, the College Board found. At four-year, in-state public colleges, it was $24,920, up from $24,080.

For far more families, financial aid is crucial when it comes to covering the cost of college, and particularly for students from low-income, first-generation or minority backgrounds.

As Congress debates how to handle trillions of dollars in expiring tax breaks, lawmakers on both sides have been lobbing claims about which consumers will see the biggest benefits from extending them. Economists and tax experts say the answer isn’t so straightforward.

In short: Who benefits depends on your frame of reference.

House Republicans passed a budget plan Tuesday that lays the groundwork to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a package of tax cuts enacted in 2017 during President Trump’s first term.

Many of the cuts for individual taxpayers will expire after 2025 unless Congress acts — and the GOP can do this with a simple majority vote in Congress by using a special legislative maneuver called budget reconciliation.

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., ranking member of the House Ways and Means tax committee, said Wednesday that Republicans’ policy plan — central to which is an extension of the Trump tax cuts, estimated to cost more than $4 trillion — amounts to a “reverse Robin Hood scam” that gives to the rich and takes from the poor.

Meanwhile, Republicans say low- and middle-income households stand to win under the plan.

“Extending the Trump tax cuts delivers the biggest relief to working-class Americans and small businesses in a generation,” Rep. Jason Smith, R-Missouri, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said Tuesday.

Experts say both sides’ arguments have merit.

“The interesting thing is both can be true, depending on how you interpret what they’re saying,” said James Hines, a law and economics professor at the University of Michigan and research director in its Office of Tax Policy Research.

If TCJA provisions are extended, 62% of tax filers would see lower tax bills in 2026, compared to if the measures expire, according to the Tax Foundation. (Put another way, many people’s tax bills would increase next year without an extension.)

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With those provisions in place, Americans would get a 2.9% boost in income after taxes in 2026, on average, according to the Tax Foundation. Income would rise by 3.4% if factoring in broader impacts of the tax cut on the U.S. economy, it said.

A U.S. Treasury Department report issued in the waning days of the Biden administration had a similar finding: The average person would get a 2.2% tax cut by extending the Trump law. (Its estimate is for the 2025 budget year.)

All income groups would get a boost in after-tax income, Treasury said.

Household in the top 5% — who earn over $450,000 a year, roughly — are the “biggest winners,” according to a July 2024 analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. They’d get over 45% of the benefits of extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it said.

A Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis on the impacts of the broad Republican tax plan had a similar finding.

The bottom 80% of income earners would get 29% of the total value of proposed tax cuts in 2026, according to the Wharton analysis, issued Thursday. The top 10% would get 56% of the value, it said.

This dynamic speaks to Democrats’ arguments, especially when coupled with possible spending cuts for programs like Medicaid and food stamps. Such programs largely benefit lower earners.

Wharton estimates that the combination of tax cuts and spending reductions for programs like Medicaid and food stamps would leave “low-income households worse off,” even after accounting for economic growth.

Some tax analysts view after-tax income as among the best frames of reference to assess policy impact, because it estimates how much a household’s buying power improves. Others disagree, however, saying it’s hard to control for other economic variables that might alter income.

The top 1% of households (who make about $1 million or more a year) would get a 3.2% boost in after-tax income in 2027 via an extension of the Trump law, the Tax Policy Center said. In dollar terms, their tax savings would be about $70,000, on average.

By comparison, middle-income households, would get a 1.3% income boost, or a $1,000 tax cut, according to the Tax Policy Center.

The top 1% paid 40% of all U.S. income taxes collected in 2022, according to a recent Tax Foundation analysis. The bottom 90% paid about a quarter — 28% — of total income tax.

“Democrats say most of the tax dollars went to the rich: They’re absolutely correct,” Hines said.

However, the TCJA cut taxes more for working families than rich families on a proportional basis, a White House spokesperson said.

Experts agreed with that assessment.

“Republicans say, ‘But the cuts were not slanted to the rich compared to how much people were paying originally,” which is also generally correct, Hines said.

For example, the bottom 50% of Americans saw their average federal tax rate fall by 15% from 2017 to 2018, after the Trump tax cut took effect, according to the Tax Foundation. (Their rate fell to 3.4% from 4%.)

By contrast, the top 1% saw their average rate decline by a lesser percentage (about 5%) during that period, to 25.4% from 26.8%.

“The reason why the debate is so fractured is there are elements of truth to both sides,” said Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation. “It’s a battle of metrics, and what weight to place on each of them.”

With a population of about 2,100, Neodesha, Kansas, is roughly 100 miles from Wichita and Topeka in Kansas and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its claim to fame is the 65-foot-tall tower that supported the drilling framework for the first commercial oil well west of the Mississippi River, locals say. 

But as an old oil town, Neodesha has struggled with a decreasing population and an aging housing supply for years.

When the refinery formerly owned by Standard Oil Co. closed in 1971, “the population was cut in half over night,” according to Neodesha’s mayor, Devin Johnson.

“We have seen that decline as every small community has over the last 50 years,” Johnson said. “The thing with small communities is, if you are not growing, you are dying.”

Last year, Neodesha partnered with MakeMyMove, an online relocation marketplace that connects workers with communities trying to attract new residents.

The town is now offering qualifying new residents incentives — such as waiving state income tax through 2026 along with property tax rebates and help with day care for working parents — as well as access to existing perks, including student loan repayment assistance up to $15,000 and free college tuition through the Neodesha Promise scholarship program.

MakeMyMove, which has worked with 88 communities across the U.S., screens applicants and connects them with local resources.

Since the program launched in 2024, more than 30 people are in the process of moving to Neodesha, according to Evan Hock, MakeMyMove’s co-founder and chief operating officer.

“We’ve awarded over $1 million in scholarships, and I feel like we are helping the community and making some real progress,” said Ben Cutler, who grew up in Neodesha and now funds the scholarship program, which started in 2020 and is available to any graduate of Neodesha High School in good standing. (Neodesha’s promise program will cover tuition at participating colleges or associate degree programs and vocational schools nationwide.) 

“One of my key focuses was helping build the community, to help in any way I could to make Neodesha a more attractive community for young families, and I think we’re making some real progress in that regard — I certainly hope so anyway,” Cutler said.

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Meanwhile, efforts are also underway to construct hundreds of new homes, apartments and duplexes in the region, along with the development of retail and commercial spaces and the renovation of several historic buildings on Main Street.

“We’ve got to cherish what we’ve got but make sure we make Neodesha an attractive place for people to come,” Johnson said.

Other communities across the country have also been upping the ante with cash incentives or voucher programs for people willing to move.

For example, workers relocating to Topeka can receive up to $10,000 for rent for the first year or up to $15,000 to put toward buying a home.

Another program affiliated with the West Virginia Department of Tourism is offering a cash incentive of $12,000 along with access to free coworking spaces and outdoor recreation packages for those who move to the state for at least two years.  

The Shoals Economic Development Authority offers $10,000 in cash to full-time remote employees who are willing to relocate to the Shoals community in northwest Alabama.

“This is a cost-effective way of doing economic development,” said MakeMyMove’s Hock. The communities “usually get a return within the first year.”

However, “incentives are not the reason people actually move,” he said. Affordability is key, he said, but community also plays an important role.

“They are looking for quality of place, they want a community connection, that’s what is motivating the move,” Hock said.

Incentive programs in Neodesha and other regions are gaining steam as residents from major cities across the country increasingly migrate to Southern and Midwestern spots where housing costs are less severe, and where construction is keeping up with the demand, reports show.

United Van Lines’ annual 2024 study found a growing shift away from the cities and suburbs of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago toward more “livable” locations with lower day-to-day living expenses.

Kaitlyn Sundberg never expected that she would move to Kansas. Sundberg and her husband, Jack, lived in Southern California but struggled to save enough for the down payment on a home of their own.

“We were living with my in-laws, and we were not able to afford anything,” said Sundberg, 27.

Sundberg’s husband, who worked as an estimator for a telecom company, expanded his job search — significantly — and found an opportunity as the program manager for Southeast Kansas Inc.

When they visited Neodesha, “it just seemed like a family-friendly place to live,” Sundberg said.

“We spent a Saturday looking for a house — there were kids riding bikes,” she said, “I just cried.”

The couple moved to Neodesha with their two dogs 18 months ago, even before the incentive program launched. Sundberg now works as the executive director of the new early learning center in town after a neighbor brought over the job posting and suggested she apply for the position.

“Being away from family is the hardest part,” she said, “but I would never want to move back.”

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