Donald Trump. Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Profimedia Images
The Trump administration intensified its campaign against Harvard University on Friday, when it imposed new restrictions on accessing federal funds for student financial aid, invoking concerns about the “financial position” of the oldest and richest universities in the United States, Reuters reports.
The US Education Department has said that it has placed Harvard University, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, under the status of “increased cash monitoring”, a deviation from the typical practice, which will force it to use its own funds to distribute student financial aid before withdrawing funds from the department.
In addition, he asked the University to issue a $ 36 million credit letter to ensure that his financial obligations are fulfilled.
The administration invokes financial concerns
The Department of Education claims that recent events have aroused concerns about Harvard finances, invoking the University's decision to issue bonds and to conduct dismissions against the conflict with the White House.
“Although Harvard remains eligible to participate in the Federal Student Aid Program for the moment, these actions are needed to protect taxpayers,” said the US Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, in a statement.
The Department of Education has said that Harvard risks losing access to all the federal funds of student help if it does not comply with the requests of its civil rights office.
The office analyzed whether Harvard still takes into account the race in the process of admission to university studies, even after the US Supreme Court's decision in 2023, when the institution established that the practices by which the schools were trying to increase the number of racial minorities were illegal.
Harvard, who did not respond to Reuters's request to comment on the situation, never suggested that he would be on the verge of financial catastrophe. However, it has reduced the expenses in the context of the campaign launched by the Trump administration in an attempt to bring changes to the universities that the president accuses of being marked by ideologies of “radical left” and anti -Semitic.
In July, Harvard said that the combined impact of the recent federal actions on his budget could be close to $ 1 billion a year. Against some of the actions he initiated court steps – in one of the situations, this month, a judge established that the administration illegally canceled over $ 2 billion from the research grants granted.
The administration tried to reach an agreement with Harvard. In a recent cabinet session, Trump said the university should pay “no less than $ 500 million” because it has been “very bad”.
