Harvard University, among the most prestigious of America’s Ivy League universities, has revealed a few chinks in its funds as it continues its battle with the Trump administration, On The Money has realized.
That’s our studying of an fascinating doc that the college lately distributed on Wall Street, a “preliminary offering statement” that makes disclosures to buyers who are weighing whether to snap up the college’s debt.
Harvard is planning to borrow $675 million through a Massachusetts company that sells low-cost, tax-advantaged municipal bonds on behalf of certain non-public entities that qualify for the privilege, universities being among them.
Harvard University, among the most prestigious of America’s Ivy League universities, has revealed a few chinks in its funds as it continues its battle with the Trump administration. Jack Forbes / NY Post Design
Most such points would be fairly prosaic; indeed there’s nothing uncommon about this borrowing per se since it’s being used principally to refinance older, higher-cost bonds, and to fund a few capital tasks.
What’s fascinating are the disclosures in the doc, which some say symbolize a sobering new actuality for the most elite of our faculties after it has come under scrutiny by the Trump administration and the public for how it dealt with hot-button political points on campus.
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For those on the proper who think Harvard is on the verge of chapter because of its ongoing contretemps with the White House – including authorities probes and throttling of federal analysis funds over campus antisemitism – you’re going to be a bit disenchanted. The college maintains the highest bond scores – triple-A from Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, the largest outfits that assess an issuer’s means to repay its bonds.
Meanwhile, Harvard’s large $56.9 billion endowment – an investment pool that helps the college fund tasks and dole out financial support for college students – returned 11.9% for the fiscal 12 months ended June 30, 2025.
While Harvard is notoriously selective, fewer college students are making use of. REUTERS
People at the college inform me that the endowment’s returns surpassed the college’s long-term “benchmark” or purpose of cranking out an 8% return. OK, not dangerous. But the 11.9% endowment positive aspects didn’t beat the S&P, which was up around 13% during that time.
Harvard, of course, is notoriously selective; just around 4% of undergrads who apply get in, the prospectus famous. And it’s costly. The all-in value for one 12 months of undergraduate research (tuition plus average room and board) stands at $86,926, a 16.6% increase over the previous 5 years, according to the doc.
But fewer are making use of, the doc also exhibits. A nifty chart can be discovered displaying that the college acquired roughly 47,800 “first year” purposes for the 2025-2026 tutorial 12 months, down 17% since the 2021-2022 tutorial 12 months. Enrollment of first 12 months college students fell more than 6% since the 2021-2022 tutorial 12 months.
Harvard President Alan Garber AP
Harvard counters that those numbers are skewed because the college last 12 months reversed a Covid-era “test optional” commonplace for school candidates, reinstalling standardized assessments for the 2025-2026 tutorial 12 months, thus its course of is more selective. Another set of numbers show the present 12 months’s crop of incoming college students roughly matches the numbers before the take a look at non-obligatory mandate went into impact.
Now let’s flip to the college’s stability sheet, also nestled inside the offering assertion. It’s no secret that non-public equity has its issues: Lackluster returns, and important illiquidity and in a sector recognized as “private credit,” or direct loans to business including software program corporations buyers believe could be upended by artificial intelligence.
The prospectus didn’t state if Harvard has investments in non-public credit, but it did word that “endowment results in fiscal year 2025 were dampened by having less public than private equity.”
That’s one approach of trying at it. The people at Harvard level out that their money managers aren’t paid to knock it out of the park on every investment; they’re enjoying the long recreation trying for respectable returns within strict risk parameters.
In the face of all of this, there’s the White House’s makes an attempt to slash federal funding; the paperwork included a assertion from Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, which famous a continued university-wide hiring freeze as effectively as protecting salaries flat, “painful layoffs,” and “scaled back projects and expenditures.”
In other phrases, it’s not so simple being elite.
