Solely 39 US faculties can stand up to Trump’s freeze on analysis {dollars}—this is why
President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a sweeping freeze on federal analysis funding, concentrating on American faculties and universities that refuse to adjust to new political situations. Amongst these are necessities to remove variety applications, curb scholar protest, and permit federal audits—calls for that many establishments view as a direct assault on tutorial freedom.
Harvard College turned the face of resistance on April 15, 2025, when its president, Alan Garber, publicly rejected the administration’s situations. In accordance with Forbes, Harvard’s refusal got here two weeks after federal companies introduced a evaluate of $9 billion in analysis funding. As a consequence, the federal government froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts for Harvard. On April 16, 2025, President Trump escalated tensions additional, threatening to strip the college of its tax-exempt standing through a Reality Social submit.
The monetary energy behind resistance
Harvard is just not standing alone. As reported by Forbes, 39 establishments throughout the US have the monetary energy—primarily within the type of giant endowments and diversified income streams—to withstand federal strain. These colleges have endowments price a minimum of $500,000 per scholar and earned a B+ or greater within the Forbes Monetary Grade rating. All however one—Princeton College—depend on federal {dollars} for 20% or much less of their working income.
These colleges embody prestigious non-public analysis universities like Yale College, the College of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt College, and Washington College in St. Louis. Rich liberal arts faculties additionally make the record, equivalent to Williams School and Amherst School in Massachusetts, each with $3.3 billion in endowment and A+ monetary grades. Davidson School in North Carolina additionally qualifies, with a $1.3 billion endowment and an A grade.
Why different elite colleges did not make the minimize
Notably lacking from the record are Ivy League establishments like Columbia College and Cornell College. Regardless of endowments of $14.8 billion and $10.2 billion respectively, each colleges enroll giant scholar our bodies, giving them decrease per-student endowments—roughly $360,000 per scholar. As Forbes reported, Columbia in the end agreed to the administration’s phrases to keep away from shedding $400 million in federal funding. The college agreed to evaluate its Center East research applications, ban face coverings at protests, and rent 36 particular officers to watch scholar demonstrations.
Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, regardless of a $23.5 billion endowment, was additionally excluded as a result of 53% of its working income depends upon federal funding, and 31% of its college students are worldwide, as cited by Forbes.
39 Trump-Proof Universities
Endowments cannot cowl every part
Although these 39 faculties have strong monetary profiles, resisting the administration’s freeze will not be straightforward. As greater schooling finance marketing consultant Lucie Lapovsky defined to Forbes, “A lot of the funding that’s being frozen is analysis funding, and most endowment cash is restricted to particular issues.” She famous that establishments would wish to renegotiate donor restrictions or increase new unrestricted funds to assist ongoing analysis in vital areas like AIDS, most cancers, and local weather science.
Even Harvard, with a $53 billion endowment—the biggest on the earth—faces issue sustaining its analysis output with out authorities assist. As Forbes quoted Lapovsky, “There’s a wide range of locations which have funds to get repurposed to assist analysis, however the magnitude of the federal analysis is big.”
