*United States President Donald Trump is considering taking $3 billion previously awarded grant money for scientific and engineering research away from Harvard University, and giving it to trade schools in the American country

Gbenga Kayode | 绿帽献妻

United States (US) President Donald Trump Monday, May 26, 2025, said he was considering taking $3 billion previously awarded grant money for scientific and engineering research away from Harvard University, Massachusetts, and giving it to trade schools in the country.

绿帽献妻 reports President Trump’s latest comments on his social media platform Truth Social came barely days after his administration sought to block the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students.

Harvard, a private university, however, has sure to restore funding, and said Trump’s sudden funding cuts for the academic institution are unconstitutional attack on its free speech rights and unlawful.

It also explained that most of the funding is for biomedical research, not usually done at trade schools to which the President is considering to redirect the grant money.

Many have considered Trump’s attempt at this as part of the US President’s extraordinary effort at seizing some government control of the academia in the American country, agency report said.

Why President Trump moves against Harvard University

Trump, a Republican, has frozen some $3 billion in Federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, having complained that the University hired Democrats he described as “Radical Left idiots and ‘bird brains’ “as professors.

Most of that grant money is appropriated by the US Congress for the National Institutes of Health to disburse to fund biomedical research after a lengthy application process by individual scientists, work that is not typically done at trade schools, report said.

But, it was not clear whether Trump was referring to Harvard grants his administration has already frozen since his return to the White House January 2025, Reuters report noted.

Harvard yet said it was informed that virtually all of its Federal grant awards were revoked earlier May this year in a series of letters by the NIH, the US Forest Service, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and other agencies.

The letters each said the grants were being suspended because they “no longer effectuate agency priorities.”

Trump wants to repurpose or how it could be reallocated to trade schools under the law, report said.

A US Judge last Friday temporarily, blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students, a policy the University said was part of the administration’s broader effort at hitting back at it for refusing to “surrender its academic independence” to the White House.

The judicial order is said to offered temporary relief to thousands of international students, including Nigerians, who were faced with potentially having to transfer under a policy that the University in Cambridge, Massachusett, called a “blatant violation” of the US Constitution, and other Federal laws.

Harvard said Trump’s recent move would have an “immediate and devastating effect” on the University and over 7,000 visa holders in the foremost higher academic institution of learning.

Report indicates Harvard enrolled almost 6,800 international students in its current school year, representing 27 percent of total enrollment, and a significant chunk of its revenue from tuition fees.

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