The Trump administration is being very aggressive in attacking several central pillars of higher education in the United States. And rather than fighting back, the leaders of academia are cowering under this intense onslaught. Several opinion pieces in reputed publications have urged academia to explain to the Trump administration and the general public that universities have a lot of value, not only in the work that they do in research and education but also in the positive externalities to society. Arguing with a group of people who think that much of the work done by professors is useless and that academia is a hotbed of Marxism and anti-American sentiments is like wrestling with a pig. As the old adage goes, you get dirty and the pig loves it. Universities must take the fight directly to the MAGA agenda.
Let us face some real facts first about the university’s contribution to global prosperity. For starters, in the United States, universities educate hundreds of thousands of young people. In some fields like science and engineering, one could not have a technical workforce without the education that universities impart. In most fields, whether a particular subject provides direct knowledge or skills, it enables critical thinking on the part of the population at large. Critical thinking is one of the most important attributes for building a productive, engaged and innovative work force. And the United States is by far the leader in scientific and technological research.
Even more importantly, the research that goes on at universities is the central pillar of economic progress in the United States. There is nothing that the United States is a leader in that emanated from somewhere other than a university. Let me give a few examples: The main protocol TCP-IP that drove the proliferation of the Internet was the outcome of years of research in academia during the 1970s; the leaders of this research were Robert Kahn at MIT and Vincent Cerf at Stanford. They were funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Program Administration). Much more recently, after decades of trying to unravel the mystery of the DNA at universities around the world, Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley and Emmanuelle Charpentier at Umea University in Sweden co-discovered CRISPR-Cas9. This discovery gives a significant boost to genetic engineering and will likely lead to new forms of therapy for the world’s most deadly diseases. In between, there have been thousands of scientific breakthroughs that have come primarily from universities that lead to quantum computing, block chains and crypto currency, RNA vaccines, search engines, and yes, electrical vehicles.
While the man on the street may think Elon Musk invented the electrical vehicle, educated people should know better. The conception of an electric “Impact” prototype EV1 dates back to 1990 when GM introduced a battery electric car; it lasted from 1996 until its demise in 1999 without government subsidies or an extensive charging network. Much of the research into the battery technology used by GM came from the University of Michigan. Universities like Stanford, MIT, and UC San Diego have made significant contributions to enhancing battery technology. As is the way science and technology evolves through the sharing of knowledge and collaboration, eventually the research of John Goodenough and his colleagues at Oxford University led to the cobalt-oxide cathode, the heart of the lithium-ion battery.
Besides advancing knowledge, the research at universities around the United States leads to significant economic impact in the region, in the country and the world. A 2024 report by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) revealed that the city’s higher education sector, encompassing over 100 institutions, contributes $35 billion annually to the local economy and employs more than 140,000 individuals. Columbia University’s research initiatives significantly contribute to this expenditure, fostering innovation and economic growth in New York City. Additionally, Columbia’s investments in campus expansions, such as the Manhattanville project, and its role in nurturing startups and high-tech entrepreneurship further amplify its economic influence on the city. The university’s Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV) helps launch startups based on faculty research, many of which are headquartered in NYC. Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) conducts cutting-edge research in medicine, leading to new treatments, medical devices, and public health initiatives that benefit NYC residents. Columbia’s work in neuroscience, cancer research, and infectious diseases has led to medical breakthroughs used by hospitals across the city. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Columbia researchers played a vital role in tracking the virus, advising policymakers, and developing treatments. Columbia is a leader in AI, cybersecurity, and data science, driving innovation in NYC’s tech sector. The university partners with Google, IBM, and local tech firms to develop AI-driven healthcare, finance, and urban planning solutions.
What can be said about the positive externalities of the research done at Columbia is even more apparent at places like Stanford University, Harvard and MIT. The California tech sector owes much to Stanford and the vision of Frederick Emmons Terman who was the dean of the school of engineering from 1944 to 1958 and provost from 1955 to 1965 at Stanford University. He is widely credited as being the father of Silicon Valley. The counterpart of the Silicon Valley in greater Boston known as “Route 128” owes much to the research at Harvard and MIT, as does the proliferation of bio-tech and pharmaceutical companies in the region. Just so you know, one of the COVID-19 vaccine that saved countless lives was from Moderna that was a start-up founded by researchers at Harvard and MIT.
While research institutions like much of the top tier academia require federal funding to pursue their mission, the wealthiest among them are not as vulnerable as it seems. Brent R. Stockwell, the chair of Columbia’s department of biological sciences, is quoted as saying “It is frustrating to me that people at other academic institutions who are not subject to these pressures are saying, ‘Columbia should fight the good fight.’ They are happy to give up our funding for their values.” In fact, Columbia University is one of those institutions that can ensure that the most important values of academia are upheld and not be subject to blackmail by whoever leads the federal government. Columbia is actually powerful to withhold these recent attacks by Trump and his underlings. Other universities like Harvard and Stanford have a much bigger muscle. It is just that they are unwilling to use it for several reasons.
The $400 million that the Trump government is trying to appropriate from Columbia University amounts to 2.6% of its $15 Billion endowment. In 2024, Columbia’s endowment had a rate of return of 11.5%, i.e. around $1.55 Billion. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT and UPenn who make up the top-6 richest universities and wealthier than Columbia have endowments ranging from $52 Billion (Harvard) to $22 Billion (UPenn). The University of Texas System has an endowment of $47.5 Billion. The investment returns from these endowments range from 3.9% at Princeton to 9.6% at Harvard. Over the past 20 years, these endowment returns averaged around 10.5 % year-on-year. There is significant financial muscle in the top academic institutions to withstand a financial attack by the federal government.
There are several good reasons why the universities want to continue funding much of the research through government grants. The evaluation processes set up at places like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation are very rigorous and ensures, for the most part, that the research being done is at the highest caliber and has possibilities to enrich society as a whole and contribute to the preeminence of the United States of America. The peer review conducted in these eminent U.S. institutions also signals to scholars around the world that the research in indeed at a high level and impactful. Further, these government institutions act as a catalyst to enable professors from different institutions to collaborate and hence adds significant economies of scale and scope to the research being done at these universities. To use the words of the venture capital world, government sponsored research creates several “multiples” to the discovery process than research sponsored internally at a university.
Additionally, income from endowments is generally used to fund the operations of the university across the board. Endowments support scholarships to needy students, funds to expand the infrastructure of the campus from general purpose buildings to laboratories and experimental stations to further the creation and dissemination of new knowledge and technology. Income from endowments also allows scholars at the university to work on very new and cutting-edge research, research that even government institutions like NIH and NSF find difficult to justify to government overseers. Additionally, there is a lot of new ideas that come from the social sciences and humanities that are not in the purview of the budgetary allocations to the science and engineering-based government institutions. Much of the economics research that informs free-market proponents today started at universities like Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis where the professors were supported by income from endowments, not to mention, of course, student tuition and fees.
There is another reason for why university endowments will be restricted as a means to safeguard its research enterprise and show of strength to the Trump attack. Over the years, universities have sold their soul to wealthy alumni donors. In addition to being the main source of funding the endowments, these alumni sit on the highest-level boards of universities. Some of these boards are called the “trustees” so as to denote that the university places its mission and values to the trust of the senior board. Harvard University does not beat around the bush and calls its highest-level board the Harvard Corporation. Many of these board members are now members of the gilded wealthy, like Elon Musk, whose main mission is to enrich themselves over anything else. In Donald Trump they have found someone who not only reflects their self-centered financial values but also much of their social values. These alumni will likely not support university leadership in fighting the dictums of Donald Trump in case the latter will react in an adverse manner to their businesses and to them personally. One could argue that these wealthy donors may have already straight jacketed Presidents of universities in pursuing inherent values in academia even before the advent of the Trump phenomenon.
To give one example, Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, has managed to get his name on the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences by donating $300 million to the institution. Ken Griffin was one of the strongest supporters of the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who was one of the first politicians to ban certain books from schools in the state. Furthermore, DeSantis started a full-frontal assault on institutions of higher learning in Florida, long before Trump became President for the second time. In early 2023, DeSantis replaced the board of trustees at New College of Florida with conservative allies, including Christopher Rufo, a vocal critic of diversity programs. The move aimed to transform the liberal arts college into a conservative-leaning institution. DeSantis has appointed trustees and administrators with strong conservative ideologies to public universities, shifting their leadership toward his policy priorities. Under the “Stop WOKE Act”, DeSantis restricted how race and gender can be discussed in university classrooms, preventing teachings that suggest systemic racism is ingrained in American institutions. The state has pressured faculty to adjust curricula to align with government-mandated guidelines, especially in the humanities and social sciences. In Florida, university boards now have more power to fire professors who don’t align with state policies or ideological expectations. By increasing political control over faculty hiring, curricula, and governance, DeSantis has undermined traditional academic independence in Florida’s higher education system.
And yet, Harvard was willing to sell its soul and receive funding from the person who was the largest donor to Ron DeSantis. Not only that, Harvard was willing to change the name of the primary vehicle for open and unfettered research, the Graduate School, for the money that Ken Grifin brought in. The most ironic aspect of this decision that corrupted the vision, mission and the values of the institution, was that Ken Griffin was the lead personality in getting rid of the President of Harvard. Claudine Gay, who only in office for a mere six months, resigned in January 2024, after being attacked by Griffin and other alumni like Adelson following criticism of her testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism. They somehow found a way to connect Gay to allegations of plagiarism.
Even though, for very good reasons outlined above, academic leaders are reluctant to use their endowments to substitute for the threatened cuts of their research budget by the Trump administration, this is the time to take a stand for values such as free speech and open inquiry which are the hallmarks of great American universities. The top universities like Harvard and Stanford have financial muscle power to lead this fight against interference by the federal government and prevent further deterioration of academia, the true crown jewel of United States and the leader in the world for research and creation of new knowledge. It is important for the top universities to fight back. Not doing so is shameful and will only lead to the demise of academia as we know it and the economic and political position of the United States of America.
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