Webster Drops Chess Program, Citing Visas and Funding

Webster University is eliminating its renowned chess program—which has spawned multiple grandmasters—citing student visa issues and funding, The St. Louis Business Journal reported.

Webster spokesperson Patrick Giblin told local media outlets that the university “was unable to raise a single dollar in endowments to support the program.” He noted that it had “invested more than a million dollars per year of its operating budget to support the program during a time when the university was losing millions each year, and its enrollments at the Webster campus declined by half.”

He also said that “most of the students on the team attended Webster on visas, and it has become difficult to receive visa approvals to recruit new members” amid the Trump administration’s shifting immigration policies and ongoing efforts to limit the flow of international students into the U.S. 

The move comes less than a year after the team won its seventh national championship.

“In collegiate competition, Webster remained the top-ranked program and qualified for the national championship every year,” Webster University chess coach Liam Le wrote in a social media post last week announcing the dissolution of the program.

Webster has been dominant on the chessboard since grandmaster Susan Polgar moved her eponymous Institute for Chess Excellence from Texas Tech University to Webster in 2012. Polgar, who also coached the program for several years after relocating the institute to Webster, took issue with the university’s rationale for cutting the team.

Polgar questioned the claim that Webster spent more than $1 million a year operating the program and argued that only two team members are international students, neither of whom has visa issues. She also questioned why Webster did not engage her in fundraising efforts.

“If the university was truly struggling to finance the SPICE chess program, why did no one in the current administration—especially President Dr. Tim Keane—ever inform me of any problems or reach out for help?” Polgar wrote in a statement posted to social media on Friday. “Furthermore, if Webster could no longer support the program, I should have been given sufficient time to relocate it elsewhere.”