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One of New Haven’s most famous alumni is now investigating the institution that trained him. Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General has opened investigations into nine universities—including Yale—over their heavy use of J-1 exchange visas for researchers and scholars on federally funded work.
Speaking at a White House press conference on fraud and abuse in work-visa programs, Vance named Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, MIT, Caltech, the University of Pittsburgh, Arizona State, and UC Davis. “Elite universities bring in foreigners to undercut the wages of American residents,” he said. “There are nine universities in particular we believe merit an investigation.”
The numbers he cited are striking. At the targeted schools, J-1 visa holders fill federally funded research positions at a rate of about 61 percent, against a national average of 38 percent. American graduate students and researchers, Vance said, earn roughly $20,000 more than the J-1 holders brought in for comparable roles. “Something weird is going on at these universities. They are using these visas way too much. They are using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop.”
Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito confirmed that subpoenas have already been served. “If an American university is breaking the law to save a dollar while exposing American research to a foreign adversary that is not academic excellence it is institutional betrayal,” he said, pointing to longstanding concerns about foreign influence—particularly from China—in university research. “Nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building.”
Yale’s own Office of International Students & Scholars reported 1,917 scholars on J-1 visas in 2024, plus another 26 sponsored through third parties. That is a large share of the research workforce at an institution that draws heavily on federal grants. The J-1 category is commonly used for postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars; it is not the standard student visa, and the administration’s focus is on whether universities are treating it as a lower-cost labor pipeline rather than a genuine exchange program.
Yale’s response was measured. Ozan Say, director of the Office of International Students & Scholars, said the university is “committed to full compliance with federal rules concerning visas, including the requirements for J-1 visas” and will review the documents once received. Similar compliance statements came from Stanford, MIT, Brown, and Arizona State. None of the schools disputed the 61-versus-38 percent disparity on the spot.
The probe sits inside a broader Thursday announcement that also suspended Microsoft (and referenced Adobe) from the PERM permanent-labor-certification process used to convert certain H-1B workers to green cards. Vance framed both actions as protection for American wages: H-1B holders in the tech examples earn substantially less than citizens in comparable roles, and foreign outsourcing firms drive the gap even wider.
Yale is no stranger to federal scrutiny under the current administration. It already faces Justice Department examination of admissions practices at the college, law school, and medical school. Earlier this year the Centinal noted Connecticut universities’ links to CCP-backed “Young Envoys” programming and the near-total absence of Republican donors among Yale faculty political contributions.
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