What Happens if ‘Harvard Is Not Harvard’?

When President Trump and his administration recently intensified their scrutiny of Harvard University—specifically threatening to deny entry to its international students—the university issued a statement that served both as a caution and an appeal. In legal filings, Harvard declared that without its international student population, the institution would no longer be what it has always been: Harvard. The statement left open the unsettling question of what the university would become in such a scenario.

This unsettling possibility is no longer theoretical for many at the university. As the Trump administration continues its broad campaign against Harvard—cutting off access to federal research dollars and undermining its ability to enroll international students—administrators and faculty alike have begun to contemplate and prepare for what might lie ahead. The university’s senior leadership, including Provost John F. Manning, a conservative legal expert who once clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has ramped up its strategic discussions, convening more frequently to address the evolving threats.

Harvard’s governing body, the Harvard Corporation, has begun to evaluate whether mass layoffs—possibly numbering in the thousands—may be unavoidable. In routine morning Zoom meetings, often held at 8:30 a.m. once or twice per week, top administrators from across Harvard’s colleges and graduate schools gather to discuss the latest developments from Washington, which continue to emerge at an alarming pace.

Meanwhile, individual schools within the university are crafting their own emergency responses. The Harvard Business School, for example, is weighing whether to move select programs online should foreign students be prohibited from entering the U.S. At the same time, the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, faced with the risk of losing critical federal support, is actively seeking corporate partners who might agree to fund Ph.D. candidates and postdoctoral researchers at $100,000 annually.

As the situation shifts rapidly, clarity about the future remains elusive. Nonetheless, administrators are moving forward with contingency plans. President Trump’s recent presidential proclamation to bar international students from reentering the country has especially rattled Harvard. These students account for about 15% of the undergraduate population and up to half of the enrollment in some graduate departments. Their absence would mean more than a loss of tuition dollars—it would signal the erosion of Harvard’s status as a global hub for intellectual exchange.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers, who led the university from 2001 to 2006, put the stakes plainly. “We would lose influence all over the world,” he said. “Harvard would go from being the world’s leading university to just another college.”

Globally, Harvard is often ranked at the top for research excellence, surpassing all others—including leading Chinese institutions that dominate the rankings just below it. If the federal government follows through on threats to cut off research funding, Harvard may be forced to dramatically downscale its research efforts, potentially allowing other universities around the world to fill the vacuum.

In addition to the funding cuts, federal officials and Republican lawmakers are considering sweeping changes to the university’s tax obligations. One proposal would significantly raise the tax on earnings from Harvard’s endowment. Another—though more speculative—would revoke the university’s tax-exempt status entirely, a decision that President Trump himself has alluded to, although legally he lacks the authority to execute it on his own.

Experts agree that even partial implementation of these proposed measures could gravely weaken Harvard’s institutional strength in ways that are without precedent in modern American history. Though it would remain a sizable Ivy League institution—larger, for instance, than Dartmouth College, which enrolls 7,000 students compared to Harvard’s 24,500—it might lose its elite research status and drop into a lower tier alongside less richly resourced public institutions. Without federal support or the contributions of international scholars, Harvard’s annual research expenditures could shrink to levels comparable to those of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which spent about $800 million on research in 2023—only about half of Harvard’s current outlay.

Moreover, if the university’s tax-exempt status were stripped, Harvard would no longer be a nonprofit academic institution in the eyes of the IRS but a taxable entity—an unprecedented development in American higher education. The unpredictability of the Trump administration’s actions leaves university officials in a precarious position. Though they are challenging the legality of recent executive measures, not every threat can be countered successfully through the courts.

Harvard has already taken steps to stabilize its finances during this period of uncertainty, such as borrowing $750 million earlier this year. While legal experts believe Harvard has a strong case to contest the administration’s actions in court, federal officials have made clear they may still refuse to award funding in the future, a decision more difficult to overturn through legal channels.

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has found itself in an especially dire position, describing the crisis it faces as potentially existential. With federal grants constituting 46% of its budget and international students representing about 40% of its enrollment, the school is aggressively exploring alternative funding sources. It is taking out internal loans, soliciting new philanthropic donations, and planning to reduce research expenditures by half for the upcoming academic year. In a recent email to faculty and staff, Dean Andrea Baccarelli emphasized the urgency of adapting to a dramatically altered landscape.

Harvard’s financial lifeblood traditionally flows from three key sources: federal research grants, tuition—particularly from international students who often pay full price—and its formidable endowment. The Trump administration’s strategy has been to attack all three. Last year, Harvard received $686 million in federal research support, making up roughly 11% of its total income. That funding has now been cut off. International students, another significant revenue stream, are being targeted through new immigration restrictions. And Republicans in Congress are pushing forward legislation that would raise the tax on Harvard’s endowment returns from 1.4% to a steep 21%, arguing that elite institutions should be held to account.

Critics of the proposed tax hike say it would severely reduce the amount of funding available for financial aid. Though Harvard boasts the largest university endowment in the world—valued at $53.2 billion—much of it is legally earmarked for specific purposes and cannot be reallocated to cover general budget shortfalls. According to Larry Ladd, a former budget officer at the university, the idea that Harvard could easily plug any funding gap using its endowment is a misconception.

The cumulative effect of these financial pressures could fundamentally alter the character of Harvard’s student body. Ironically, rather than reducing the university’s elite status, the loss of international students and financial aid could make Harvard even more exclusive. Historically, the university has enrolled three times as many students from the top 1% of income earners as from the bottom 20%. But over the past decade, Harvard has worked to change this, increasing the share of first-generation college students from 7% to 20%, and recently expanding financial aid to cover full tuition for families earning under $200,000 annually.

Still, in court filings, Harvard has acknowledged that under extreme financial constraints, its ability to offer such support could be compromised. Should international enrollment fall and federal support vanish, the resulting budget gap may be shifted to domestic students. Tuition could rise, and the university might prioritize applicants able to pay the full cost of attendance—currently estimated at nearly $87,000 per year, including room and board. Critics worry this could erode the university’s commitment to economic diversity.

The biggest blow may yet come from the collapse of federal research funding. Last year, the university spent nearly $1.5 billion on research, with almost half of that sourced from the U.S. government. While private philanthropy and corporate partnerships may continue, insiders agree these cannot make up for the breadth and reliability of federal support.

At Harvard Medical School, federal funding has powered pioneering work in areas such as Alzheimer’s research, cancer immunotherapy, and non-opioid pain treatments. According to Dean George Q. Daley, 60% of the school’s research is government-funded. Administrators are now advising researchers to scale back their portfolios. Some are turning to private donors, but those efforts may falter if Harvard loses its nonprofit status. As Professor David R. Walt of Harvard Medical School noted, the appeal of giving to a taxable entity is much reduced.

Nonetheless, many within and beyond Harvard believe that the institution’s history of resilience could carry it through. As Ted Mitchell of the American Council on Education observed, if Harvard finds itself fundamentally changed, its renowned faculty and administrators may well reinvent it from the ground up. What such a reinvention would look like, however, remains uncertain. As Mitchell put it, “It’s not like just deflating a balloon and becoming smaller. It would be a restart.”