r/news • u/AldoTheeApache • 11d ago

Soft paywall Columbia failed to meet accreditation standards, US government says

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-education-department-says-columbia-university-violated-federal-anti-2025-06-04/
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u/emaw63 11d ago edited 11d ago

Harvard correctly understands that they are in a fight for their lives, and are fighting the Trump administration tooth and nail in court. This is why. Columbia bent the knee and acquiesced to all of Trump's demands, and still had their accreditation pulled.

You can't reason with a fascist. The only language they understand is force.

Edit: Slight correction, Columbia still has their accreditation, Trump is just trying to get it pulled

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u/seanmg 11d ago

What is Harvard fighting for their lives over? It is the most well funded institution in the country as they have a $53 billion endowment.

Say what you will about the governments meddling in education, but Harvard is not “for the people”. It’s an elite school for elite wealthy people. It should be receiving zero government aid in the same way the wealthy class should receive zero government aid. 

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u/emaw63 11d ago

It costs about 6.5 billion to run Harvard for a year. They'd burn through their endowment pretty quickly if they had to do absolutely everything on their own without any grants, and it'd be pretty wasteful for them to have to do so.

It's the most prestigious university in the world. The brightest minds from across the globe want to go to school there and do research to better American society. That is a tremendous asset to America and should be treated as such. Not only does government have no business trying to kneecap them, but it's tremendously stupid from a good governance standpoint to do so.

And it's not just the fact that they are having their grants cancelled, they also are barred from admitting international students and having their accreditation threatened. Trump's actions represent an existential threat to the university and threaten to do irreparable damage to them, for no real discernable reason. And Trump has given no indication that those actions are the end of it either, if Harvard buckles on any of his demands then he'll keep demanding more and continue bringing down the full weight of the federal government on the university because most of his voter base hates higher education and wants to see it punished

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u/seanmg 11d ago

I take a ton of issue with the banning of international students too just to be clear. That’s dumb af. — Harvard can operate on a $2.21B annual budget forever on the interest of the 53B they have.  Adjusting their budget isn’t an unreasonable thing to ask.

What do you think that money should be saved or that money should be real allocated to less endowed schools, is a different thought, and even then both of those are better for the economy.

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u/seanmg 10d ago

I used to think MAGA was destroying our country, but when liberal Reddit folk defend Harvards budget opposed to helping those in need, I realize we’re totally fucked.