Harvard plans to borrow $750 million after federal funding threats

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Harvard University plans to borrow $750 million from Wall Street as part of contingency preparations, it said on Monday, days after President Donald Trump's administration announced a review of $9 billion in federal grants and contracts to the Ivy League school in a crackdown on alleged antisemitism on campuses.

In a letter to Harvard last week, the government listed conditions that Harvard must meet to receive federal money, including a ban on protesters wearing masks to hide their identities and other restrictions.

Harvard acknowledged receiving the letter but did not comment further.

"As part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances, Harvard is evaluating resources needed to advance its academic and research priorities," Harvard University said in Monday's statement.

Harvard's plans come less than a week after Princeton University said in a notice dated April 1 that it was also considering the sale of about $320 million of taxable bonds later this month. Princeton said last week the U.S. government froze several dozen research grants to the school.

Harvard intends to issue up to $750 million of taxable bonds for "general corporate purposes," a spokesperson said. The university had $7.1 billion of debt outstanding at the end of fiscal year 2024, and anticipated about $8.2 billion after the proposed bond issuance.

The university most recently issued $434 million in tax-exempt bonds in March 2025 and $735 million in tax-exempt bonds in spring 2024, its spokesperson said, adding it also issued bonds in 2022.

Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, the largest of any U.S. university. Advocates, students and several faculty members have called on university leadership to resist the demands from the Trump administration.

Trump has threatened to slash federal funding for U.S. universities that his administration says have tolerated antisemitism on their campuses.

Such allegations have grown out of a wave of pro-Palestinian protests at Harvard and other schools against Israel's military assault on Gaza that has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, and led to genocide and war crimes allegations that Israel denies.

The Israeli onslaught followed an October 2023 attack inside Israel by Islamist group Hamas, which took over 250 hostages. The attack killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism and support for Hamas.

But some Jewish students on some campuses have said they have felt threatened by protesters, and that some academic courses are biased against Israel.

Rights advocates have also raised concerns about Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias during the Israel-Gaza war. The Trump administration has not announced steps in response.

Last month, the government warned 60 universities that it could bring enforcement actions if a review determined the schools had failed to stop antisemitism.

Harvard's student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, recently reported that two leaders of Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Director Cemal Kafadar and Associate Director Rosie Bsheer, were dismissed from their positions.

TRUMP CRACKDOWN

The Trump administration also planned to freeze grants to Brown University.

Last month, it canceled $400 million in federal funding for Columbia University, the epicenter of last year's campus protests.

Columbia agreed to some significant changes that Trump's administration demanded as a precondition for talks about restoring the funding.

Federal agents have detained some foreign student protesters in recent weeks from different campuses and are working to deport them. The government has revoked the visas of many foreign students.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio and Christian Schmollinger)