Trump previews $500 million deal with Harvard on trade schools
By Betsy Klein, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday previewed a $500 million deal on trade schools with Harvard University, following months of talks about a potential settlement amid a broader fight between the Trump administration and the school.
“I guess we reached a deal with Harvard today, so we’ll see. What you have to do is paper it, right, Linda?” Trump asked Education Secretary Linda McMahon during an event in the Oval Office on pediatric cancer, before later saying the administration is “close to finalizing” it.
McMahon responded affirmatively but did not provide any specifics.
CNN has reached out to Harvard.
Officials from Harvard and the White House have been in discussions for months about a high-dollar deal to restore all federal funding to the university and end its ongoing lawsuits against the administration. Trump has been calling on Harvard to pay a sweeping $500 million settlement, telling McMahon during a Cabinet meeting last month that he wants “nothing less.”
Trump said Tuesday that officials are “very close” to a deal and Harvard “will be paying about $500 million and they’ll be operating trade schools. They’ll be teaching people how to do AI and lots of other things, engines, lots of things.”
The president broadly described the contours of the deal, describing it as a “series of trade schools” that “would be run by Harvard.”
“This is something that we’re close to finalizing. We haven’t done it yet, but they put up $500 million interest, and everything else would go to that account, meaning, go to the trade school. And, you know, it’s a big investment in trade school done by very smart people, and then their sins are forgiven,” he added.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled in Harvard’s favor to restore more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House, marking a major win for the school. Harvard was the first university targeted by the Trump administration to take on the White House directly in court. The administration has argued it is cracking down on antisemitism on campus, but Harvard has become the epicenter of a broader fight over academic freedom, federal spending and campus oversight.
Since then, the Trump administration has continued to find new and creative ways to exert pressure on the elite institution using multiple levers of the federal government.
Most recently, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights referred Harvard for suspension and debarment proceedings due to what it said was a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. And the Department of Education placed the university on “Heightened Cash Monitoring” status due to what it described as “growing concerns regarding the university’s financial position.” The Department of Commerce has also targeted the school’s patents.
Other schools have taken less confrontational approaches with the president’s team. In a deal reached in July, Columbia University agreed to pay the US Treasury a $200 million settlement to restore all federal funding. The school also agreed that an independent monitor will oversee implementation. Days later, Brown University reached a deal in which it would pay Rhode Island workforce development organizations $50 million in grants.
The White House remains in negotiation with Cornell University and Northwestern University, and in early August, CNN reported that the Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion deal with the University of California, Los Angeles. The school’s leadership said at the time that sum would devastate the university. Faculty, staff, student organizations and every labor union representing University of California workers have sued the administration.
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