In the great divide between Harvard and President Donald Trump, there’s a middle-ground solution that hardly anyone seems to be contemplating.It’s a simple fix, and can endure long into the future..But first let’s set the terms of the conflict.The Trump administration has frozen federal funds earmarked for Harvard and is threatening to yank the $9 billion a year Harvard gets.The Trump administration is demanding that Harvard: Hire based only on meritAdmit students based only on meritPrevent foreign students hostile to American values from enrollingBan masks at protestsReport misbehaving foreign students to the fedsEnd ideological litmus tests in hiring and admissionsDiversify the viewpoints represented among the faculty and studentsPut certain academic departments into receivership to try to change their waysPurge anti-SemitismEnd official recognition of pro-Palestinian groupsDiscipline miscreant students, past and presentCooperate in three years of audits by the federal government In response, Harvard has basically pled guilty to being riddled with anti-Semitism on campus and has said it is dealing with it, while largely ignoring the other charges and claiming the federal government has no business telling it what to do.“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” lawyers for Harvard responded.Both sides have merit.The Trump administration is right about almost every failing at Harvard. (Not every item is right on point; and the list leaves out some other problems.)Harvard is right that the federal government shouldn’t get to tell the university how to run itself.How to fix the situation?End federal funding for Harvard.End federal funding for all universities.Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan famously doesn’t take federal funding.“Nobody gives us any money unless they want to,” Hillsdale’s president, Larry Arnn, told Wall Street Journal columnist Tunku Varadarajan, in a column published Friday.But that’s not the case with Harvard.Have you ever given money to Harvard?Well, yes, you have. We are all Harvard donors, because the federal government is a Harvard donor – and, as Arnn points out, Harvard’s largest donor.“They should give it all up. They should make an honest living,” Arnn said, according to the column.“I don’t think Trump ought to run Harvard. I doubt if he thinks that. But I do think that we’re spending a lot of money at Harvard. It’s a very unbalanced institution. And goodness’ sakes, some of the kids are not safe there, because of their race, or religion, or both,” Arnn said, according to the column. “And so, should the taxpayer be funding that?”No, we shouldn’t.Two objections spring to mind.One:What about federal financial aid for students?If federal funding were eliminated tomorrow, watch tuition and fees plummet come September 2025, as colleges and universities quickly whip into shape a more realistic budget that emphasizes delivering services instead of serving administrators. Also watch donors give more to their alma maters and other schools they favor, and watch colleges and universities offer more of their own financial aid to students they want to attract.Two:What about science?It is an article of faith among certain academics that it’s not possible to conduct adequate scientific research without great gobs of government money.And yet somehow scientific research went on for hundreds of years before the United States federal government started throwing money at research universities during the late 1950s.Science has more than enough fans to attract generous donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations – as we see from the names of various lavish buildings on college campuses.Eliminating federal funding of universities would save the federal government at least $75 billion a year. (About $25 billion in federal student aid and about $50 billion in research grants; some estimates say the total expenditure is significantly more than that.)It would also vastly reduce the amount of power the federal government has over universities.Harvard can expect a particularly soft landing, given its $53.2 billion endowment. (As of October 2024, according to the university’s annual financial report.)And it would be entirely free to right its own ship …Or continue to run itself into the ground.
In the great divide between Harvard and President Donald Trump, there’s a middle-ground solution that hardly anyone seems to be contemplating.It’s a simple fix, and can endure long into the future..But first let’s set the terms of the conflict.The Trump administration has frozen federal funds earmarked for Harvard and is threatening to yank the $9 billion a year Harvard gets.The Trump administration is demanding that Harvard: Hire based only on meritAdmit students based only on meritPrevent foreign students hostile to American values from enrollingBan masks at protestsReport misbehaving foreign students to the fedsEnd ideological litmus tests in hiring and admissionsDiversify the viewpoints represented among the faculty and studentsPut certain academic departments into receivership to try to change their waysPurge anti-SemitismEnd official recognition of pro-Palestinian groupsDiscipline miscreant students, past and presentCooperate in three years of audits by the federal government In response, Harvard has basically pled guilty to being riddled with anti-Semitism on campus and has said it is dealing with it, while largely ignoring the other charges and claiming the federal government has no business telling it what to do.“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” lawyers for Harvard responded.Both sides have merit.The Trump administration is right about almost every failing at Harvard. (Not every item is right on point; and the list leaves out some other problems.)Harvard is right that the federal government shouldn’t get to tell the university how to run itself.How to fix the situation?End federal funding for Harvard.End federal funding for all universities.Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan famously doesn’t take federal funding.“Nobody gives us any money unless they want to,” Hillsdale’s president, Larry Arnn, told Wall Street Journal columnist Tunku Varadarajan, in a column published Friday.But that’s not the case with Harvard.Have you ever given money to Harvard?Well, yes, you have. We are all Harvard donors, because the federal government is a Harvard donor – and, as Arnn points out, Harvard’s largest donor.“They should give it all up. They should make an honest living,” Arnn said, according to the column.“I don’t think Trump ought to run Harvard. I doubt if he thinks that. But I do think that we’re spending a lot of money at Harvard. It’s a very unbalanced institution. And goodness’ sakes, some of the kids are not safe there, because of their race, or religion, or both,” Arnn said, according to the column. “And so, should the taxpayer be funding that?”No, we shouldn’t.Two objections spring to mind.One:What about federal financial aid for students?If federal funding were eliminated tomorrow, watch tuition and fees plummet come September 2025, as colleges and universities quickly whip into shape a more realistic budget that emphasizes delivering services instead of serving administrators. Also watch donors give more to their alma maters and other schools they favor, and watch colleges and universities offer more of their own financial aid to students they want to attract.Two:What about science?It is an article of faith among certain academics that it’s not possible to conduct adequate scientific research without great gobs of government money.And yet somehow scientific research went on for hundreds of years before the United States federal government started throwing money at research universities during the late 1950s.Science has more than enough fans to attract generous donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations – as we see from the names of various lavish buildings on college campuses.Eliminating federal funding of universities would save the federal government at least $75 billion a year. (About $25 billion in federal student aid and about $50 billion in research grants; some estimates say the total expenditure is significantly more than that.)It would also vastly reduce the amount of power the federal government has over universities.Harvard can expect a particularly soft landing, given its $53.2 billion endowment. (As of October 2024, according to the university’s annual financial report.)And it would be entirely free to right its own ship …Or continue to run itself into the ground.
