By the start of last week, Harvard University had signaled its readiness to meet President Trump’s demand that it spend $500 million to settle its damaging, monthslong battle with the administration and restore its critical research funding.

Then, two days after The New York Times reported that Harvard was open to such a financial commitment, the White House announced a far cheaper deal with Brown University: $50 million, doled out over a decade, to bolster state work force development programs.

The terms stunned officials at Harvard, who marveled that another Ivy League school got away with paying so little, according to three people familiar with the deliberations. But Harvard officials also bristled over how their university, after months of work to address antisemitism on campus and with a seeming advantage in its court fight against the government, was facing a demand from Mr. Trump to pay 10 times more.

The people who discussed the deliberations spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing talks that are supposed to remain confidential.

White House officials are dismissive of the comparison between Brown and Harvard, arguing that their grievances against Harvard are more far-reaching, including assertions that the school has yet to do enough to ensure the safety of Jewish students and their claim that the school is flouting the Supreme Court’s ruling on race-conscious admissions.

“If Harvard wants the Brown deal, then it has to be like Brown, and I just think it’s not,” May Mailman, the top White House official under Stephen Miller who has served as the architect of the administration’s crusade against top schools, said in an interview in the West Wing last week.