Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
When US President Donald Trump announced that he was barring Harvard from enrolling international students, the news disrupted the education of a future queen: Princess Elisabeth, the future queen of the Belgians.
The royal student began studying for a Master’s degree in Public Policy at the storied educational institution last autumn. The Master in Public Policy is “a cross-disciplinary core curriculum that exposes you to the analytic methods, conceptual frameworks, and habits of mind that empower you to craft solutions for real-world public problems,” according to Harvard’s website.
But now, with the American president announcing that Harvard will not be able to enrol international students through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, Princess Elisabeth’s educational future is up in the air.
The Belgian Royal Court announced that Princess Elisabeth has completed her first year, and that the impact of President Trump’s decision, “and whether there is any, will only become clearer in the coming days or weeks.”
Harvard quickly sued the US Government calling the move a violation of their rights; and a judge placed a temporary restraining order to block the President from stripping Harvard of its ability to enrol international students.
“We have to look at this calmly and wait,” Xaiver Baert, a communications director at the Belgian Royal Court, told reporters. “So much can still happen. Will the decision really be implemented as we know it now? Only time will tell.”
The future queen of the Belgians received her Bachelor’s degree in History and Politics from Oxford’s Lincoln College last year. She received a Fulbright Program award through the US State Department’s international educational exchange program at the time she was admitted to Harvard.