00:00Today on Forbes, 39 Trump-Proof Universities.
00:06Quote, Research powers progress, is splashed in white text across the Harvard University homepage,
00:13a tagline preceding a string of the Ivy League University's recent scientific breakthroughs.
00:19Those breakthroughs include more effective treatments of clinical depression
00:22and achievements in robotics helping stroke victims regain mobility.
00:27It's also a not-so-subtle rebuke of the Trump administration's wide-ranging attack on university research funding.
00:35Harvard made headlines Monday when its president, Alan Garber, stood up against the Trump administration,
00:42refusing to cave to demands that the university eliminate diversity programs,
00:46curb student protests, and allow federal audits in exchange for its federal funding.
00:52Garber's rejection of Trump's demands followed an announcement from federal agencies
00:56that they would review $9 billion in funding for Harvard two weeks earlier.
01:01The Trump administration swiftly hit back, freezing $2.2 billion in multi-year grants
01:07and $60 million in multi-year contracts for the university.
01:12On Tuesday morning, Trump threatened to strip the university of its tax-exempt status via a post on Truth Social.
01:19It's a dramatic loss of funding, but as Garber likely calculated, Harvard can afford it.
01:27The 388-year-old university has a $53 billion endowment, the largest in the world,
01:33a AAA debt rating, and relatively little reliance on federal support for its operations
01:38compared to some of Harvard's peers.
01:40While rare among America's thousands of colleges, Harvard is not alone.
01:47Forbes has identified 39 schools that have the revenue diversity and the financial strength,
01:52primarily in the form of a large endowment, to resist the Trump administration's demands to come to heel,
01:58which have been under the guise of combating anti-Semitism on campus.
02:02It's not just a list of the richest colleges.
02:05Columbia University, with its $14.8 billion endowment, is absent,
02:10as is Cornell University, which has an endowment worth about $10.2 billion.
02:16Both of these Ivy League institutions enroll tens of thousands of students,
02:20far more than some of their peers,
02:21and have per-student endowments of about $360,000 each.
02:27Columbia, after being threatened it would lose $400 million in federal grants and contracts,
02:32ultimately cave to the administration's demands,
02:35including to review its Middle East Studies programs
02:37and overhaul its student protest policies
02:40by hiring 36 special officers and banning the use of face coverings to conceal identity.
02:47All 39 of the institutions on our list have endowments worth at least $500,000 per student
02:53and earned at least a B-plus grade on the Forbes Financial Grade Ranking.
02:57All but one of the schools, $33 billion endowment Princeton University,
03:02relies on federal dollars for 20% or less of its operating revenues.
03:07In February, Yale University, with a $40.7 billion endowment and A-plus financial grade,
03:14announced a plan to continue funding faculty members and graduate students
03:18whose grants were unexpectedly terminated.
03:20Other wealthy, private research institutions also appear on the list,
03:25including the University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt University,
03:29and Washington University in St. Louis.
03:32Making up a bulk of the list are wealthy liberal arts and faith-based institutions,
03:37including Rivals Williams and Amherst College in Western Massachusetts,
03:41each with an endowment of $3.3 billion and A-plus financial grades,
03:46and Davidson College in North Carolina,
03:49with a $1.3 billion endowment and A financial grade.
03:53These types of smaller institutions are more heavily focused on undergraduate teaching,
03:58which does not rely on federal research funding.
04:01For those that plan to push back against the administration
04:05and potentially forego federal research dollars,
04:08Lucy Lepofsky, a higher education finance and governance consultant
04:12and former president of New York's Mercy College,
04:15explains that it won't be as simple as dipping into their large endowment nest eggs
04:19to make up for any shortfalls.
04:21She says, quote,
04:23Most of the funding that is being frozen is research funding,
04:26and most endowment money is restricted to specific things.
04:29So you couldn't suddenly divert it to AIDS research or cancer research or climate research
04:34because it's paying for scholarships or for faculty chairs or things like that.
04:39For full coverage, and to see our list of the 39 Trump-proof universities,
04:44check out Emma Whitford's piece on Forbes.com.
04:49This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:51Thanks for tuning in.
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