Harvard looks to borrow $750 million in response to possible loss of federal funding over anti-Semitism
The world's richest university will borrow $750 million as it embraces a potential loss of federal funding due to its response to campus anti-Semitism.
Despite the bond sale, Harvard oversees an endowment of approximately $53 billion - the largest of any university in the world.
The world’s richest university will borrow $750 million as it embraces a potential loss of federal funding due to its response to campus anti-Semitism.
Harvard University in Massachusetts has offered the taxable bonds as the Trump administration orders the Ivy League institution to follow various guidelines in order to avoid losing $9 billion from the federal government.
Last month, the university also issued $450 million in tax-exempt bonds in order to “finance and refinance certain capital project,” as reported by The Harvard Crimson.
According to the outlet, the university’s latest bond sale statement makes reference to the Trump administration’s March 31 letter about allegations of the school failing to properly address anti-Semitism, as well as the Federal Task Force on Antisemitism’s latest demands for the institution to follow.
”While the financial impact on the University resulting from the totality of potential developments at the federal level cannot be quantified at this time, any such developments may, directly or indirectly, have a material adverse effect on the current and future financial profile and operating performance of the University,” Harvard wrote in its latest statement, as reported by The Crimson.
A university spokesperson also told the outlet that the move is “part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.”
Despite the bond sale, Harvard oversees an endowment of approximately $53 billion - the largest of any university in the world.
According to Harvard’s financial administration website, the endowment funds “support nearly every aspect of University operations,” especially financial aid and faculty salaries.
”Even with endowment support, Harvard must fund nearly two-thirds of its operating expenses ($6.4 billion in fiscal year 2024) from other sources, such as federal and non-federal research grants, student tuition and fees, and gifts from alumni, parents, and friends,” the university writes.
Harvard states that since endowment donations are intended to “benefit both current and future generations of students and scholars,” the institution is therefore “obligated” to “preserve the purchasing power of these gifts by spending only a small fraction of their value each year.”
”Spending significantly more than that over time, for whatever reason, would privilege the present over the future in a manner inconsistent with an endowment’s fundamental purpose of maintaining intergenerational equity,” the web page adds.
The university also states that 80 percent of its endowment is restricted due to donors’ intended purposes of their contributions.
[RELATED: Trump admin. hits Cornell, Northwestern with $1.79B funding freeze over anti-Semitism]
Last year, Harvard’s donations dipped by $150 million in the aftermath of controversies surrounding former President Claudine Gay and various alumni expressing disapproval for the institution’s handling of anti-Semitic activism.
Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.