If Harvard Takes Billions from the Government, It’s Not a Private University

In the latest confrontation with Harvard University, the Trump administration has threatened to freeze over $2 billion in government grants, as well as revoke the school’s tax-exempt status.

“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ President Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”

Exempting schools from paying taxes has long been driven by a belief that an educated citizenry is good for the country. Allowing educators to keep more money ostensibly allows them to provide more training and opportunity for their students.

Yet if Harvard is training and churning out woke revolutionaries determined to undermine our nation and its foundational principles, why should American taxpayers being footing the bill?

If you’re like most people, you might wonder why a private university with an endowment valued at $53.2 billion needs taxpayer money to even run its operation.

Reports suggest that because of various legal and even donor restrictions, it’s challenging for schools to gain broad access to such stashed-away cash. According to records, Harvard spent $2.4 billion of its endowment in 2024. Its total operating budget was $6.4 billion. The school also reported that donations to the school last year dropped by $150 million.

University officials are at loggerheads with the government over a variety of concerns, especially with how the school has handled antisemitism. As the Daily Citizen has previously reported, administration officials have suggested that if Harvard wants to restore its government funding, they’re going to have to make numerous reforms, including:

• Banning masks on campus, which will prevent protesters from covering their faces.
• Clarifying and enforcing rules about when, where and how students can protest.
• Disciplining students who have committed antisemitic violations of school rules.  
• Adopting “merit-based” hiring and admissions policies, rather than selecting employees and students of certain races, sexes and ideological perspectives.
• Cooperating with law enforcement to protect students’ safety.

School officials are defiant. In a statement released on Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber declared:

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

But if you’re taking billions of government dollars, are you really a private university? In the real world, billions and millions of dollars almost always come with strings attached.

Watching this melee unfold, it’s hard to believe that Harvard was the first college established in the U.S., and it was founded to help train Christian ministers.

The school was named after John Harvard, an English Puritan minister. Arriving in New England, he was pastor of the First Church in Charleston near Boston. Sadly, he contracted tuberculosis and died soon after at the age of 31. Thanks to a family inheritance from land in Europe, John gifted his sizable estate (both books and money) to the upstart university in Cambridge.

In 1650, the school’s motto left no question about leadership’s spiritual convictions:

In Christi Gloriam – For the glory of Christ.

By 1692, the school’s spiritual foundations had only grown stronger, boasting the following motto:

Veritas, Christo et ecclesiae – Truth, for Christ and the Church.

Foundations are critical. Mission drift is real.

The school still bears John Harvard’s name. He still overlooks the campus, his bronze likeness perched high outside University Hall. Students are said to rub his toe for good luck.

It’s going to take a lot more than good luck to get Harvard back on track to its founding ideals.

Image from Shutterstock.