豪华公寓、宝马和宝格丽：为什么国际学生对波士顿经济如此重要

【中美创新时报2025年6月16日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）每年有超过8万名外国大学生来到马萨诸塞州。其中一些人花费不菲。现在，随着白宫采取行动吊销部分学生签证，并针对与共产党有联系的中国学生，外国学生给波士顿带来的稳定资金流面临枯竭的风险。《波士顿环球报》记者迪蒂·科利对此作了下述报道。

一月份，随着中国新年的到来和蛇年的到来，纽伯里街宝格丽的生意也随之红火。来自上海、成都等地的波士顿留学生​​纷纷来到这家奢侈珠宝店，浏览其“Serpenti”系列——镶嵌着钻石和宝石的饰品，其中精致的蛇形耳环起价3300美元。

“如果某样东西流行或者很受欢迎，很多（国际）学生都会想买，”曾在波士顿的博柏利、巴尼斯和香奈儿担任客户顾问的米歇尔·江（Michelle Jiang）说。“他们在购买之前不会多想。”

这只是富裕的国际学生在大波士顿消费经济中扮演重要角色的众多方式之一。他们看似无止境的消费体现在各种炫目夺目的地方——比如学生们停在联邦大道旁的玛莎拉蒂轿车、穿着去上课的巴黎世家运动鞋，以及在Yvonne’s、Trade和Contessa等顶级餐厅的餐桌上挥霍。

或许，外国学生的影响力在市中心十字区和芬威区的高层建筑中最为显著，这些地方的家庭经常为远在大洋彼岸学习的孩子购买公寓，而学生们则在城市最豪华的建筑中租用高价公寓。

现在，随着白宫采取行动吊销部分学生签证，并针对与共产党有联系的中国学生，外国学生给波士顿带来的稳定资金流面临枯竭的风险。

当然，在马萨诸塞州上大学的8.2万名外国学生并非个个都是富人；有些人靠贷款或津贴维持生计，在宿舍厨房做饭。但相当一部分人用从海外汇款支付全额学费和生活费，这部分人相当引人注目。根据国际教育工作者协会（NAFSA）的估计，国际学生每年在马萨诸塞州的消费总额高达40亿美元。

目前尚不清楚有多少国际学生将在秋季返校，因为针对特朗普限制签证举措的法律挑战正在法庭上进行。

但国际学生咨询服务机构 Shorelight Education 的首席执行官汤姆·德雷特勒 (Tom Dretler) 表示，即使他的命令被撤销，在学生签证申请的“旺季”也会造成影响。随着不确定性的增加，许多学生可能会推迟9月份来波士顿的决定，或者干脆去其他地方上大学。

“这就像决定在感恩节前停止所有零售销售，然后说也许会在12月26日恢复营业，”德雷特勒说​​。“在大学里，一个半月就能造成相当于四年的损失。”

其后果开始显现。保留着会说普通话的销售人员的精品店正在观望中国顾客的减少，房地产经纪人也在关注外国学生数量的骤减将如何影响房地产市场。

长期以来，这部分人群一直占据着波士顿公寓市场的很大份额，这可以追溯到20世纪90年代来到波士顿的科威特人。来自海外的家庭通常会在学生大一之前买房，然后在学生毕业后出售以获取利润。Star Residential 首席经纪人布雷特·斯塔尔 (Brett Star) 表示，波士顿许多最昂贵的公寓都住着来自中国和沙特阿拉伯的年轻人。

“我曾经在波士顿挂牌出售过一套房子，然后请国外的人通过FaceTime帮我的学生看房，然后几乎立刻就收到了全现金报价，这种事真是屡见不鲜，”他说，“这基本上是意料之中的事。”

例如，今年 1 月，几名国际学生突然搬离了千禧广场的一套公寓。

他们刚刚搬出市中心十字路口的豪华公寓大楼，那里任何东西的售价都低于一百万美元，却留下了价值不菲的物品：吉他、名牌服装、三台 MacBook、价值 1,000 美元的酒，浴缸里还有一堆名为“Wasted”的饮酒棋盘游戏的副本，这些游戏显然是住户们制作的，然后像公寓里的其他东西一样被丢弃了。

这或许是一个极端的例子，但像千禧公寓这样的楼盘，容纳的外国学生比例已经高得离谱，第一波士顿地产的合伙人布雷特·德罗克说道。德罗克管理的高端租赁房产中，约有三分之二——包括四季酒店、丽思卡尔顿酒店和道尔顿一号——都租给了国际学生。他的大部分低价房源都住着在职专业人士，起价2700美元。但那套月租2.8万美元的顶级公寓呢？它住的是一个有多个孩子在当地上学的家庭。

“当你突然开始思考那些推动房地产市场发展、却无可替代的个人力量时，会发生什么？”德罗克问道。“房价会回落吗？库存会过剩吗？”

在奥尔斯顿等社区，这些担忧已被不确定性所取代，外国居民重塑了这里的街景。过去十年，奥尔斯顿已发展成为一个非正式的“韩国城”，火锅、炸鸡和奶茶店为日益壮大的亚裔学生群体提供服务。奥尔斯顿村主街执行董事亚历克斯·科纳奇尼说，今年1月喜茶在哈佛大道开业时，来自中国的年轻人排起了长队。喜茶在中国拥有约3000家门店。

他说：“如果这些规定生效，他们的客户和收入都会大幅减少。”

奢侈品零售业也是如此。 一位波士顿的奢侈品零售高管表示，许多外国学生在波士顿购买迪奥马鞍包和Le Labo香水，因为这些产品在美国比在美国更便宜。这位高管因雇主原因不愿透露姓名。精品店每年都依赖于这种稳定的销售流。

“波士顿奢侈品零售业的稳定很大程度上得益于学生人数的稳定，”这位高管说道。“就像潮水一样，你知道它会在某个时间点涌入，也会在某个时间点退去。如果我们开始对任何一所大学的国际学生人数设限，那将会产生严重的后果。”

对于里卡多·达莱·朱尼尔（Riccardo Dallai Jr.）来说，外国学生是他位于纽伯里街的时尚精品店Riccardi的一大客户群。这家店 出售Comme des Garçons运动鞋、Moncler飞行员夹克和Loewe连帽衫。他说，每周至少会有一位土耳其硕士生来店里逛逛，寻找新的款式，这位学生也是众多常客之一。

“希望他们明年能回学校，”达莱说。“这是最大的不确定因素。”

位于奥尔斯顿的波士顿外国汽车公司 (Boston Foreign Motors) 的老板米拉德·法拉哈尼 (Milad Farahani) 表示，公司业务也遵循学术日程，这主要得益于 国际学生。20年来，他见证着学生们——尤其是来自马来西亚的——在朋友之间推荐他，积累了源源不断的寻找宝马、奔驰和路虎的客户。这些客户会在五月把车卖给他，到了秋天，他又会把车卖给新的买家。即使 是六位数的车，报价通常也是全现金。

法拉哈尼说：“我们确实认为，阻止这些人进入美国或波士顿可能会产生影响。”

经济放缓可能已经出现。

莱昂纳多·索利斯（Leonardo Solís）是国际学生招待所（International Student Guest House）的老板，这家短期租赁服务机构主要服务于外国学生。他曾在后湾区拥有七栋公寓楼和一家主要服务于外国学生的运输公司。巅峰时期，他每年接待100名学生。但在新冠疫情期间，这一数字开始下降，今年又再次下降。如今，他的海外客户名单已接近5人。

“波士顿一直是有钱国际学生的圣地，”索利斯说。“但那些富裕的国际学生似乎不像以前那么多了，我不知道他们还会不会回来。”

以“大夜现场”（Big Night Live）为例。大夜娱乐公司（Big Night Entertainment）的联合创始人埃德·凯恩（Ed Kane）在邀请艾伦·沃克（Alan Walker）来演出时，觉得这简直是天大的惊喜。这位挪威DJ曾在2024年创纪录的世界巡演中，将中国和印度的体育场馆挤得水泄不通，而来自这些国家的留学生正是波士顿夜总会的命脉，他们抢占着座位，提供着整瓶酒的服务。

但凯恩说，沃克5月30日在这座可容纳1500人的场地举办的演出门票甚至都没卖完。五分之一的普通门票没有售出；还有几张桌子空着。

凯恩说他预见到了这一点。

“我觉得国际市场的情况和我预想的完全一样，现在不太好，”凯恩说道，他同时经营着The Grand、Memoire和Scorpion Bar。“这种情况已经持续了12到18个月，现在就到了。”

《波士顿环球报》员工安德鲁·布林克（Andrew Brinker）对本文亦有贡献。

附原英文报道：

Fancy condos, BMWs, and Bulgari: Why international students are so valuable to Boston’s economy

More than 80,000 foreign college students come to Massachusetts each year. Some spend a lot of money.

By Diti Kohli Globe Staff,Updated June 16, 2025, 6:00 a.m.

From Newbury Street boutiques to Seaport condo buildings, a wide range of high-end businesses around Boston rely on well-heeled international students.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

When the Chinese New Year arrived in January and the Year of the Snake dawned, business at the Bulgari on Newbury Street saw a boost. Students in Boston hailing from foreign cities such as Shanghai and Chengdu took to the luxury jeweler to browse its “Serpenti” collection — diamond-and-gemstone encrusted baubles that start at $3,300 for the dainty viper earrings.

“If something is trending or popular, many of the [international] students want it,” said Michelle Jiang, a former client advisor at Burberry, Barney’s, and Chanel in Boston. “They don’t think much of it before buying.”

It’s just one of the many ways that well-to-do international students play an outsized role in Greater Boston’s consumer economy. Their seemingly boundless spending materializes in flashy and unmissable ways — in the Maseratis students park along Commonwealth Avenue, the Balenciaga sneakers they wear to class, and at the tables of the poshest restaurants, including Yvonne’s, Trade, and Contessa.

Perhaps nowhere is foreign students’ influence more striking than the high-rise buildings in Downtown Crossing and Fenway, where families frequently purchase condos for children studying oceans away, and students rent top-dollar apartments in the city’s swankiest buildings.

Now, as the White House moves to revoke some student visas and target Chinese students with ties to the Communist Party, the steady flow of cash that foreign students bring to Boston is at risk of drying up.

To be sure, not all of the 82,000 foreign students who attend college in Massachusetts are wealthy; some sustain themselves on loans or stipends and make dinner in dorm kitchens. But a sizable and conspicuous portion pays full-price tuition and living expenses entirely with money wired from overseas. Overall, international students spend $4 billion in Massachusetts annually, according to one estimate from NAFSA, the Association of International Educators.

It’s not yet clear how many of those international students will return in the fall, as legal challenges against Trump’s moves to restrict visas wind through the courts.

But even if his mandates are reversed, they’re hitting during “high season” for student visa applications, said Tom Dretler, chief executive of the international student advising service Shorelight Education. As uncertainty mounts, many students could defer their decision to come to Boston in September or simply go to college elsewhere.

“This is like deciding you’re going to stop all retail sales right before Thanksgiving and saying maybe you’ll open it on Dec. 26,” Dretler said. “At colleges, you can do four years’ worth of damage in a month and a half.”

The fallout is starting to emerge. Boutiques that retain Mandarin-speaking sales staff are waiting to gauge the drop-off in Chinese customers, and real estate brokers are watching to see how a plunge in foreign students could transform the housing market.

That population has long accounted for a big slice of the city’s condo market, dating back to Kuwaitis who came to Boston in the 1990s. Families from abroad typically buy ahead of a student’s freshman year and sell after graduation at a profit. Many of the priciest condos in Boston are occupied by young adults from China and Saudi Arabia, said Brett Star, principal broker at Star Residential.

“The number of times I listed something in Boston for sale, had someone from outside the country tour it on FaceTime for a student, and then saw an all-cash offer almost immediately is exceptional,” he said. “You basically expected that.”

In January, for example, an apartment at Millennium Place was vacated by a few international students abruptly.

They had just moved out of the Downtown Crossing luxury condo building, where nothing sells for under a million, and left behind a small fortune’s worth of stuff: guitars, designer clothes, three MacBooks, $1,000 worth of liquor, and in the bathtub, a pile of copies of a drinking board game named “Wasted” that the residents had apparently produced, and then abandoned, like everything else in the apartment.

That might be an extreme example, but buildings like Millennium have come to house a disproportionate share of foreign students, said Brett DeRocker, partner at First Boston Realty. About two-thirds of the high-end rental properties DeRocker manages — at the Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, and One Dalton — are rented to international students. Working professionals occupy most of his lower-priced listings, which start at $2,700. But the $28,000-a-month apartment at the top of the scale? It’s home to a family with multiple children studying locally.

“When you all of a sudden start to think about a force of individuals who fuel the housing market with no way to replace them, what happens?” DeRocker asked. “Will there be a pullback in home values? Will there be a surplus in inventory?”

Those worries have given way to uncertainty in neighborhoods like Allston, where foreign residents have reshaped the streetscape. Over the past decade, Allston has evolved into an unofficial Koreatown, with hot pot, fried chicken, and boba spots serving a growing community of Asian students. When HEYTEA opened on Harvard Avenue in January, young adults from China, where the boba chain operates about 3,000 locations, were lined up around the block, said Alex Cornacchini, executive director of Allston Village Main Streets.

“They would both have a lot less customers and revenue if these mandates go into effect,” he said.

The same goes for luxury retail. Many foreign students purchase Dior saddle bags and Le Labo perfume in Boston because the products are more affordable in the US compared to the same goods back home, said one Boston-based luxury retail executive, who was not authorized to share his name by his employer. Boutiques rely on that steady flow of sales year after year.

“A good portion of the stability in luxury retail in Boston is sustained with the consistency of the student population,” the executive said. “It’s like the tide. You know it’s going to come in at this time, and go out at this time. If we were to start to see a cap on how many international students are coming from any university, that is going to have severe repercussions.”

For Riccardo Dallai Jr., foreign-born students are a good chunk of the customer base at Riccardi, the fashion boutique he owns on Newbury Street offering Comme des Garçons sneakers, Moncler bomber jackets, and Loewe hoodies. At least once a week, he said, a Turkish master’s student browses his selection in search of new styles, one of many international students who frequent the shop.

“Hopefully, they come back to school next year,” Dallai said. “That is the main wild card.”

At Boston Foreign Motors in Allston, business also follows the academic calendar, said owner Milad Farahani, thanks largely to international students. For 20 years, he has watched students — especially from Malaysia — refer him from friend to friend, creating a never-ending line of clients looking for BMWs, Mercedes, and Land Rovers. They sell cars back to him in May, and he flips them to a new buyer come fall. Offers are typically all-cash, even for the six-figure vehicles.

“We do think it could affect things to not have those people come into the country or into Boston,” Farahani said.

The slowdown may already be here.

Leonardo Solís, owner of the International Student Guest House, a short-term rental service that caters to foreign students, once owned seven apartment buildings in Back Bay and a transportation company, mostly catering to foreign students. At his peak, he hosted 100 students a year. But those numbers began to dwindle during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have fallen again this year. Today, his client list from abroad is closer to five.

“Boston has always been a beacon for international students with money,” Solis said. “But that wealthy population of international students just doesn’t seem to be coming as they used to, and I don’t know if they are ever going to come back.”

Take Big Night Live. Ed Kane, co-owner of Big Night Entertainment, thought it would be a slam dunk when he booked Alan Walker for a show. The Norwegian DJ had filled stadiums in China and India during a record-breaking 2024 world tour, and foreign students from those very countries are the lifeblood of nightclubs in Boston, snagging tables and bottle service.

But Walker’s May 30 show at the 1,500-person venue didn’t even sell out, Kane said. A fifth of the general admission tickets went unsold; a few tables stayed empty.

Kane said he saw it coming.

“I feel like the international market is exactly where I thought it was, which is not great right now,” said Kane, who also operates The Grand, Memoire, and Scorpion Bar. “It’s been coming for 12 to 18 months, and here it is.”

Andrew Brinker of the Globe staff contributed to this story.