India, Nov. 12 -- US President Donald Trump on Monday defended allowing foreign students to study in the US as a "good" practice and pushed back on a call to reduce their numbers, saying it would be financially destructive to the nation's higher education system and that institutions would go "out of business."

As Trump spoke to Laura Ingraham on Fox News in an interview, he admitted that half of the students in US come from all over the world.

"You don't want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country - destroy our entire university and college system - I don't want to do that," he said adding that it is actually good to have foreign students. "Look I want to be able to get ...