Nigeria, April 9 -- From extreme cuts to research funding and attacks on academic freedom to interference in curricula, faculty firings, and student expulsions, colleges and universities in the United States are confronting alarming and unprecedented hostility from the federal government. At the same time, institutions are also grappling with a disturbing loss of faith in higher education among large swaths of the American public. Given these challenges, can anything be learned from leaders of US-style universities abroad who have regularly surmounted existential threats?

American international universities offer a broad-based US liberal education with classes taught in English. Many are accredited in the United States and some have part...