President Donald Trump suggested boosting trade schools, opening a new dimension of his administration’s escalating fight with Harvard university.
Harvard suing Trump administration over international enrollment ban
Harvard is suing the Trump administration in response to its international student enrollment ban.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is continuing his second-term assault on Harvard University with a Memorial Day threat to pull $3 billion in federal grants while signaling an unexpected potential beneficiary if he follows through: America’s trade schools.
“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land,” Trump wrote in the May 26 Truth Social post. “What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!”
Trump and Harvard have been at odds since shortly after his January inauguration, with the Republican president targeting the Ivy League school’s tax-exempt status, its federal funding, its international student body, its diversity programs and more.
Harvard has thus far withstood pressure from the administration to change its hiring, admissions and other practices to align with Trump’s political priorities. The university and other elite schools have faced allegations of failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitism, too.
Some of the administration’s pressure tactics: threatening to take away Harvard’s non-profit status, freezing $3 billion in federal grant dollars, barring the university from enrolling foreign students, and pushing Congress to increase taxes on university endowments.
Harvard has fought back in the courts, winning a temporary restraining order on May 23 that will allow international enrollments to continue as the case makes its way through the courts.
Most recently, the administration demanded a list of Harvard’s foreign students. In a second Truth Social post, the president claimed the university is protecting “radicalized lunatics” by withholding the documents.
Although the president likely cannot unilaterally shift federal grant dollars (many of which are given for specific project-driven purposes, such as medical research) from Harvard elsewhere, his remarks on trade schools echo those he — and former Democratic vice president Kamala Harris — made on the campaign trail in 2024.
Interest continues to grow in vocational and trade programs among young Americans as four-year college enrollments flag. The rising cost of college education has prospective students seeking other routes to good-paying jobs, leading members of both political parties to call for increased investment in U.S. apprenticeship programs.