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Two US credit rating agencies have become embroiled in a rare public dispute over the reliability of scores for insurance companies’ growing stash of private credit investments.

The dispute involves a study, since withdrawn by its publisher, purporting to find that small credit rating agencies assign more generous scores to private credit investments than the larger and more established ones. Kroll Bond Rating Agency has accused Fitch Ratings of misleading market participants by relying on the study to raise doubts about the quality of its ratings.

Fitch on Monday published a report critical of Kroll and other groups, based on the 2024 study, issued by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

A Fitch spokesperson stood by its report, arguing the insurance commissioner’s group reached similar conclusions in prior studies. “If the (association) provides new information, we will update our analysis.”

The unusually overt quarrel highlights the intense competition in the fast-growing and lucrative $1.6tn private credit industry to carve out turf — not just among lenders, but among the groups paid to referee creditworthiness of the market’s opaque investment offerings.

“There’s a build-up of risk in the insurance industry and also potentially in the collateralised loan sector that is not being properly monitored,” said Ann Rutledge, a former senior Moody’s analyst and now chief executive of rating agency CreditSpectrum. “The opacity and the risk are both attributable to the fact that there are cracks in the foundation of the current SEC-regulated credit rating industry.”

Insurers and other investors use the types of ratings in question, known as private letter ratings, when no public ratings are available. Larger ratings firms historically have eschewed issuing these types of scores for private credit products, leaving the market dominated by smaller agencies.

Private letter investments were “inherently more risky given the lack of transparency and potential ratings inflation”, analysts at JPMorgan said in a recent note, adding “there is an inherent challenge in assessing credit quality from the outside as no part of the process, analysis, or information is transparent from the outside”.

Kroll, which was among the first to challenge the establishment credit agencies with its launch after the global financial crisis, said it was troubled by its larger rival’s boosting of “statistically unsound” research. It said Fitch’s criticism appeared geared towards supporting its own grab for dominance.

“In seeking relevance to increase its market share in private credit, Fitch appears to have undercut two foundational principles for any rating agency — integrity and analytical rigour,” Kroll said in a statement.

The study by the NAIC focused on the rise of private letter ratings for insurers’ private credit investments, which totalled about $350bn at the end of 2023.

It found confidentially-issued grades from smaller rating shops were more likely to deviate from scores by the association’s own securities valuation office and were notably higher on average. According to the original report, smaller groups such as Kroll tended to offer ratings three notches higher than the association’s internal score, while larger agencies such as Fitch offered ratings about two notches higher.

The study also showed that the number of privately rated securities held by US insurers grew from 2,850 in 2019 to 8,152 in 2023, and that the share of securities rated by small credit rating providers such as Egan-Jones, Kroll and Morningstar had grown to 86 per cent in 2023.

The report also noted that Fitch is the leading provider of private letter ratings among the big three US rating agencies, ahead of S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Ratings.

But earlier this month, the insurance association announced it was removing the report from its website “to undergo further editorial work to clarify the analysis presented”.

Without naming names, the insurance association said it would “evaluate how the information we provide to the public could be misconstrued or otherwise utilised in inappropriate ways”.

The NAIC declined a request for comment.

“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

That’s what the nation’s oldest and wealthiest private university in the U.S. said in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, which sought to prevent the elite institution from enrolling thousands of international students.

A judge quickly blocked the Trump administration’s effort on Friday, and issued a temporary restraining order. The ruling comes as the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities reached a record high.

Here’s a look at the impact of international students, by the numbers:

1.1 million

In November, Open Doors® 2024 Report on International Educational Exchange announced that the total number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities reached an all-time high of more than 1.1 million students for the 2023 and 2024 year.

This represented a 7% increase from the previous academic year.

“The experience of studying in the United States not only shapes the lives of individuals, but the future of our interconnected world,” said Scott Weinhold, with the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in a statement announcing the Open Door findings. “The ties formed between U.S. and international students today are the basis of relationships for future business and trade, science and innovation, and government relations.”

India sent the most international students to the U.S. for higher education with more than 331,000 students enrolled, according to the 2023-2024 data from Open Doors.

China followed as the second leading country of origin with more than 277,000 students, including nearly 123,000 graduate students, studying in the U.S. It’s the leading nation for sending undergraduates and non-degree students to the U.S. Combined, India and China account for more than half of all international students in the country.

$43.8 billion

International students contribute not only academic and athletic talent to their campuses but also billions of dollars in economic activity across the nation.

According to NAFSA: Association of International Educators, these 1.1 million international students at U.S. colleges and universities contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 academic year and supported more than 378,000 jobs.

“International students’ contributions to the U.S. are significant and multi-faceted, and this year’s record-breaking economic total is the latest proof of that,” Fanta Aw, NAFSA executive director and CEO, said in a statement. “Yet we cannot be complacent. Meanwhile, competition for the world’s best and brightest is increasing.”

Aw urged the U.S. government to adopt politics that help attract and retain talent from overseas.

“We cannot afford to lose international students’ meaningful positive impact on American students’ global competence, our economies, and our communities, particularly in the areas of STEM-related research and innovation,” Aw said.

Students pose with a person dressed as Roar-ee the Lion mascot, before the Commencement Ceremony at Columbia University in New York on May 21.

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140 

Harvard relies on nearly 7,000 international students from more than 140 countries to come to its campuses. This is more than 25% of its total enrollment, according to 2024-2025 data from Harvard.

When including all of the scholars and researchers, the international population at Harvard exceeds 10,000.

In comparison, as of fall 2024, Yale University had 3,639 international scholars (including trainees, researchers, students and others) from 129 countries.

And Columbia University reported a total of 16,926 international students and scholars (including faculty and researchers) coming from 149 countries.

196

Students from other countries make a notable impact across on a various sports and fields.

Harvard has 42 varsity sports teams, and for the 2024-2025 rosters, about 21% of the athletes — approximately 196 out of 919 — are from abroad, Sportico reported last month.

The Yale Bulldogs mascot looks on during a game against the Harvard Crimson at Fenway Park on November 17, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts.

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70

Harvard has hosted international students under the F-1 visa program for 70 consecutive years, the university said in its federal lawsuit against the Trump administration. This program, provided by the U.S. government under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) and overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, allows international students to pursue their education at Harvard. The university has also long been designated as an exchange program sponsor to host J-1 nonimmigrants. Both programs allowed students from other countries to get an education at Harvard.

And Harvard is not unique. Thousands of high schools, colleges and universities have similarly hosted international students through these visa programs.

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Donald Trump has dramatically shrunk the White House National Security Council by firing a number of officials, placing others on administrative leave and ordering many secondees to return to their home agencies.

Several people familiar with the firings said the NSC, which is being run temporarily by secretary of state Marco Rubio, had retained some staff, mostly senior directors, while eliminating dozens of positions in the office.

The move, which one person described as a “liquidation”, comes three weeks after the president fired Mike Waltz as his first national security adviser, the top position at the NSC.

The officials who lost their positions were notified on Friday afternoon. The move followed weeks of speculation about an imminent purge at the NSC.

NSC chief of staff Brian McCormack emailed the officials shortly after 4pm to tell them they had 30 minutes to remove their belongings from their desks and to exit the NSC building next to the White House.

It was unclear if Alex Wong, the deputy national security adviser, had been dismissed. Laura Loomer, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who helped persuade Trump to fire Waltz, has also been gunning for Wong, who is a well respected official with hawkish views on China.

Three people familiar with the dismissals said Ivan Kanapathy, senior director for Asia, remained but his entire team, including his China staff, had been let go. Loomer had also urged Trump to fire Kanapathy, a former fighter pilot.

Robert O’Brien, who served as national security adviser in the first Trump administration, recently wrote an opinion article calling for the NSC to be cut to about 60 officials. The NSC, which traditionally has served as a co-ordinating office but has sometimes been used to centralise power in the White House, had more than 200 officials during the Biden administration.

“There is no question that the NSC in the Biden administration had become bloated and was high-handedly trying to implement foreign policy rather than doing its traditional role of co-ordinating the implementation by the rest of the national security establishment,” said Dennis Wilder, a former top NSC official in the administration of George W Bush.

“That said, there is a danger that a severely trimmed NSC will not have the executive firepower to ‘herd the cats’ of the national security system.”

Some supporters said the move would help Trump by reducing the number of officials from other agencies who might not support his “Make America Great Again” agenda.

One person close to the White House said Trump had learned a lesson from his first administration when he came to believe that many NSC officials were quietly blocking his agenda. “He was not going to make the same mistake again,” the person said.

But others questioned the impact that the purge would have on policy, and particularly the ability to referee disagreements across the government.

“While it might seem a hobbling bureaucratic move because the NSC’s purpose is to staff the president, its significance is about far more,” said one former NSC official.

“By whittling down the NSC staff to almost nothing, you kneecap the US government’s ability to generate foreign policy options, or to potentially act as a brake on Trump’s preferences. All that remains is presidential power.”

Trump also dismantled most of NSC directorate that oversaw technology and national security policy, according to several people. The president previously fired David Feith who headed the office, which was created during the Biden administration.

That directorate was instrumental in creating export controls that were designed to make it much harder for China to obtain advanced American technology that could help its military.

The NSC did not comment. But Brian Hughes, the NSC spokesperson, said he would remain and “continue to serve the administration”. The White House press secretary did not respond to a request for comment.