President Donald Trump has declared open season on liberal institutions, and Harvard University is in the crosshairs. It’s become almost impossible to keep track of the back-and-forth of administration actions and the university’s legal rebuttals in recent weeks, but it’s clear that the Trump administration plans to wage a war of attrition against one of America’s oldest and most famous institutions.
Amid the onslaught, Harvard officials have taken the position that “the administration’s approach is a threat to academic freedom.” But, whether the issue is federal grants or foreign students, the university’s concern is financial — not academic or social.
Defending Harvard’s Bottom Line
Harvard’s interest in maintaining federal funding has obvious financial motives. The university’s decision not to comply with federal requests that Harvard modify hiring practices, strengthen viewpoint diversity on campus, and alter student discipline practices put $2.2 billion in federal grants at risk. Other grants were also jeopardized, including $2.7 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security and $1 billion in grants for health research.
It’s hard to overstate how much taxpayer money flows to Harvard each year. For the operating costs of research alone, Harvard raked in $686 million of federal funds in FY2024 — about 11 percent of its overall operating revenue and nearly 70 percent of the operating revenue designated for research. That’s a mere fraction of the school’s operating expenses, which totaled $6.4 billion in FY2024.
And the operating expenses pale in comparison to the university’s well-funded endowment. By the end of FY2024, Harvard’s endowment had grown to $53.2 billion, making it the largest university endowment in the world. The annual $2.4 billion distribution funds about a third of Harvard’s operating expenditures.
The university’s response to the Trump administration on this front has been fairly straightforward: by freezing federal funding, the administration disrupts the university’s research. But, for the Trump administration, it matters who conducts research at Harvard. The spigot could presumably be turned back on if the university complies with basic requests for fair hiring practices and increased viewpoint diversity. At a university where only 3 percent of faculty identify as conservative and where far-left Hamas supporters have continually caused trouble, it’s hardly an unreasonable request.
Follow the Money
Somewhat surprisingly, mainstream coverage of the Trump administration’s ban on Harvard’s enrollment of foreign students also took a financial approach to the problem. Though arguments about DEI and the value of “diverse” voices on campus would have been expected as recently as last November, the issue of foreign student enrollment has been spun as a financial issue, not a social concern.
Last week, the New York Times announced the administration’s actions by immediately highlighting the financial value of foreign students:
The Trump administration on Thursday said it would halt Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, taking aim at a crucial funding source for the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college in a major escalation of the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda.
Indeed, foreign students are a significant source of revenue because they “typically pay full tuition” and “require little to no financial aid.” And, with international students making up 27 percent of Harvard’s student body, these foreign students are valuable “full-pay” customers as tuition keeps climbing while Americans weather wage stagnation and inflation. Harvard’s price tag of $87,000 per year is undoubtedly steep, and scholarships and financial aid dramatically decrease the number of students who pay full price. Currently, 24 percent of Harvard “families pay nothing for their students to attend.”
Though Harvard will peddle bromides about diversity, their fundamental concern is financial in nature, as the New York Times’ reporting immediately revealed.
Government Money Comes With a Price Tag
It doesn’t take a Harvard degree to recognize that money always comes with strings attached. This is equally true for individual relationships — money from a friend or a parent, even in the form of a gift, creates certain implied obligations — as for institutional relationships.
For decades, colleges and universities have employed academic freedom as their convenient “get out of jail free” card. Far be it from Harvard to discipline unruly left-wing protesters; taking an ostensible stance against their opinions would compromise the university’s academic freedom.
The current goings-on at Harvard are remarkable, but they’ve always been possible. Funding can be given, but it can also be rescinded. And President Trump isn’t showing any signs of letting up. The federal government giveth — now let’s see what happens when the federal government taketh away.
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Mary Frances Devlin is a George Neumayr fellow and contributing editor at The American Spectator. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Follow her on X at @maryfrandevlin.