The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it would revoke $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University, punishing the school for allegedly allowing antisemitism to flourish on campus and failing to protect Jewish students.
The administration sent a letter to the university’s interim president outlining actions the university must take “as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” The demands included banning masks that conceal identity and empowering law enforcement to deal with agitators on campus.
Columbia’s decision to cave to Trump’s demands, which some described as an attempt to “destroy” the school, sparked campus protests. But it earned a pat on the head from federal authorities who, on Tuesday, described Columbia’s compliance as a “positive first step” toward rehabilitating its relationship with the government.
Columbia isn’t the only university scrambling to placate the U.S. government.
This month, the Guardian reported that the U.S. had cut research funding for seven Australian universities. The Australian government urged university leaders to comply with Trump’s demands, which included filling out a 36-point questionnaire designed to root out DEI, gender ideology, and other programs or activities deemed anti-American.
Trump’s critics have described the president’s efforts as an overt attack on academic freedom, but this is not true. Columbia and other universities are free to pursue whatever academic activities they wish, free of federal interference. They’ll simply lose federal funding if those activities transgress the White House’s directives.
This situation may not be pleasing to university faculty, but it should hardly be surprising. It’s long been understood that “he who pays the piper calls the tune,” meaning that the person (or institution) who provides the resources has the power to make decisions and dictate how things are done.
The idiom helps explain why the U.S. government is funding so many activities and programs, including universities in other countries. It wants to call the tune.
When news broke that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was calling an emergency session in response to Trump’s proposal to cut spending to seven of Australia’s universities, many asked, “Why are U.S. taxpayers funding Australian universities?”
It’s a fair question, but we should also be asking why U.S. taxpayers are sending $400 million to Columbia University, a private Ivy League institution that had a $15 billion endowment as of 2024.
Columbia’s situation is not unique. Harvard received $686 million from federal agencies in fiscal 2024, which accounted for 11% of its operating revenue and roughly two-thirds of research expenditures, according to the Crimson.
Harvard and Columbia, which received more than $1 billion from the federal government last year, have endowments that total nearly $70 billion.
Yet they’ve instituted a hiring freeze following cuts in federal spending.
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— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) March 25, 2025
Harvard initiated a hiring freeze following the Trump administration’s action against Columbia, but the university is hardly hurting for cash. Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, which is why critics often mock Harvard as a “tax-free hedge fund.”
The truth is worse, however. As Eric Weinstein (who is both a Harvard grad and an actual hedge fund manager) has argued, Harvard is effectively an extension of the U.S. government.
The control Washington exerts over Harvard and other universities is not accidental. Data show that the federal government has sent trillions of dollars to universities since the 1970s, accounting for well over half of all research and development funding since 2012.
The trillions of dollars pumped into universities have no doubt created value, but only at great cost — and not just the trillions of dollars that could have been allocated elsewhere had they not been taxed and redirected by Washington.
University independence has been another cost, though one largely unseen. Because the piper responds to whomever pays him, universities have slowly ceded their autonomy and academic integrity. They generate research and policy proposals that back official narratives.
If you doubt this, consider how easily Trump has made Columbia dance to his tune.
One would think that a $15 billion endowment would grant the university freedom from Washington, but that assumption overlooks the power of money in systems. (As Nicky Santoro said, it’s all about the dollars.)
COLUMBIA STILL ISN’T TAKING ITS ANTISEMITISM CRISIS SERIOUSLY
If people are serious about academic freedom, the answer isn’t to restore Columbia’s federal funding or the United States Agency for International Development contracts that have been terminated. The solution is to get the federal government out of the business of funding universities, and not just those in Australia.
The flow of, and fear of losing, federal money has corrupted universities and made them beholden to Washington politicians, diverting them from their true goal: the pursuit of truth through inquiry, research, and the dissemination of knowledge.
Jon Miltimore is senior editor at the American Institute for Economic Research. Follow him on Substack.