What Loss of Federal Funding and Tax-Exempt Status Could Mean for Harvard

Historically, private, for-profit colleges have had a difficult time remaining financially stable.

People walk through a gate as they exit Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on April 15, 2025. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

For decades, Harvard University has remained atop many prestigious college rankings, alongside seven other Ivy League schools, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the most elite, expensive, private, nonprofit institutions across the nation.

If President Donald Trump succeeds in revoking its tax-exempt or federal grant eligibility status—which he has threatened to do on multiple occasions in the past month—the United States’ oldest university, founded in 1636, could be on a very different list of schools ahead of its 400th birthday.