When perusing the news these days, you can’t escape the onslaught of stories about Harvard. The once venerable institution, with its current involvement with Jew-hatred, which the school fosters or disregards, has become emblematic of the degradation of our nation’s higher education system.
Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, has repeatedly acknowledged an epidemic of antisemitism at the university. “It is present on our campus. I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university.”
Harvard, however, is hardly a one-off.
The nation’s colleges are hotbeds of Jew-hatred. StopAnti-Semitism, an advocacy group, issued a report card in late 2024 that details how 25 colleges across the country treat Jewish students.
In the introduction, the group states, “Since last year’s staggering 1,500% increase in antisemitic submissions, StopAntisemitism has been forced to triple the size of our team just to manage the deluge of reports. This year alone, we’ve seen a jaw-dropping 3,000% rise in antisemitic tips and submissions, as universities across the country fail to protect their Jewish students in the wake of violent antisemitic uprisings.”
The findings are quite disturbing:
While students at Harvard and other American universities must retain their full First Amendment rights to express their views, regardless of how vile they may be, the schools should not be complicit. Furthermore, taxpayers should not be compelled to foot the bill. There is no constitutional principle that requires the government to provide funding to any private schools. However, Harvard receives over $3 billion in federal contracts and grants, despite its private endowment exceeding $53 billion, which serves as a substantial source of revenue for the university.
In fact, American institutions of higher education nationwide greatly benefit from taxpayer support. Federal, state, and local governments collectively spent $237 billion on higher education in 2022, according to Just Facts. This amount translates to $1,807 for every household in the U.S., excluding additional government funding for university research, hospitals, and student loans.
Grants and other forms of direct taxpayer subsidies to universities are legion. For example, capital gains of major university endowments are taxed at a minuscule rate of 1.4%, a fraction of the taxation rate to which the endowments would be subject if they were operating as any other type of business or investment fund.
The best way forward is for Harvard and other colleges to go the Hillsdale College route. This venerable Michigan institution accepts zero federal funding. But there are only 22 colleges in the country that refuse any public monies.
Reason Magazine’s J.D. Tuccille explains, “In 1984, rather than sort its student body by race as demanded by the federal government, Michigan-based Hillsdale College culminated years of resistance by severing connections with the feds. Since then, the school has refused all federal funds… Students who need financial aid are provided with funds from private donations. Hillsdale’s fundraising has grown its endowment to over $900 million, enabling the college to finance its activities according to its own principles and philosophical outlook.”
Students who share the school’s perspective can apply, knowing their money won’t be used to support ideas they oppose. Those who don’t can go elsewhere.
Tucille further states that “a truly independent Harvard could be a model of open inquiry and debate. Or it could be the woke seminary many of its inmates crave. The choice would be its own, funded with its own money. That’s a path that all colleges and universities seeking to decide their fates should consider.”
The Trump administration, acting on claims that Harvard has failed to stamp out antisemitism on campus and act in the public interest, froze more than $2 billion in research grants and contracts in April.
Not surprisingly, Harvard poohbahs are protesting the action and suing the federal government, arguing that the government’s actions violate the First Amendment, don’t follow legal procedures, and, very strangely, that the government’s actions “threaten Harvard’s academic independence.”
Academic independence?
If the school were really independent, it wouldn’t need any government largesse whatsoever.
While President Trump’s ambitious agenda to rein in the fiscal and cultural excesses of elite American higher education and not coddle extremists is admirable, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
We must mandate that colleges become part of the marketplace, with individual students and their families footing the bill. As a taxpayer and a Jew, I shouldn’t be forced to fund Harvard or any private university, and neither should you. Enough already.
Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.