Trump: Harvard to Pay $500 Million, Launch Trade School Programs
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that his administration was nearing a deal with Harvard University, which would involve a $500 million payment by the Ivy League school, following months of negotiations over campus policies.
The administration has been in conflict with several elite universities, threatening to cut federal funding over issues such as pro-Palestinian protests related to Israel’s war in Gaza, diversity programs, and policies regarding transgender students.
“We are in the process of getting very close,” Trump told reporters at an event in the Oval Office.
“Linda is finishing up the final details,” he said, referring to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
“And they’ll be paying about $500 million and they’ll be operating trade schools. They’re going to be teaching people how to do AI and lots of other things, engines, lots of things,” he said.
Harvard, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, did not immediately respond to Trump’s comments.
Civil liberties advocates have raised concerns about free speech, privacy, and academic freedom in response to the administration’s investigations into universities. Trump has claimed that Harvard and other institutions allowed antisemitism to spread during recent pro-Palestinian protests.
Protesters argue that the administration is wrongly equating criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and that supporting Palestinian rights is being misrepresented as backing extremism. The administration has not launched investigations into Islamophobia.
In April, Harvard task forces reported that both Jewish and Muslim students experienced harassment and discrimination during the course of the Gaza conflict, which escalated after the October 2023 Hamas attack.
Other Ivy League institutions have also reached agreements with the administration in recent months. Columbia University agreed to pay over $220 million, while Brown University committed to a $50 million workforce development initiative.
In Harvard’s case, the government moved to cut more than $2 billion in research grant funding, threatened to revoke the school’s accreditation, and considered barring international students. Officials claimed Harvard was violating federal civil rights law.
Harvard President Alan Garber said these actions could cost the university nearly $1 billion a year, leading to staff layoffs and a hiring freeze.
Harvard has challenged some of these measures in court, arguing that the administration was retaliating after the school refused demands to change its leadership, hiring, and academic policies in line with a political agenda. The university filed two lawsuits, both assigned to U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, who blocked the administration from banning international students and ruled on September 3 that it could not continue withholding Harvard’s research funding.
However, in the days following that decision, the administration continued to escalate its efforts. A day before Trump’s latest comments, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was starting a process that could prevent Harvard from receiving funding or contracts from any federal agency.
The government has also faced legal setbacks in similar cases. Just last week, a federal judge ordered it to restore more than $500 million in frozen grant funding to the University of California, Los Angeles.
