It doesn’t take a university president to recognize the wisdom in making it easier for foreign students to remain in the United States through permanent resident status rather than visas. But the presidents have united in appealing to the White House and Congress to find ways to make it easier for such students to obtain that resident status and remain among us.

American students from, say, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, can easily recall students from other lands who enhanced their own educations. And plain figures make the case: foreign students and grad students often play key roles in inventions or innovations in science – not to mention bringing art and music from their own cultures to campuses and communities. One survey showed that foreign inventors were included in a majority of patents at top universities in the survey group.

Finding a way to allow the best and brightest from abroad to remain in residence in the United States ought to be a bipartisan winner.