Harvard College, among the many most prestigious of America’s Ivy League universities, has revealed just a few chinks in its funds because it continues its battle with the Trump administration, On The Cash has discovered.
That’s our studying of an attention-grabbing doc that the varsity not too long ago distributed on Wall Avenue, a “preliminary providing assertion” that makes disclosures to buyers who’re weighing whether or not to snap up the college’s debt.
Harvard is planning to borrow $675 million via a Massachusetts company that sells low-cost, tax-advantaged municipal bonds on behalf of sure non-public entities that qualify for the privilege, universities being amongst them.
Most such points can be fairly prosaic; certainly there’s nothing uncommon about this borrowing per se because it’s getting used largely to refinance older, higher-cost bonds, and to fund just a few capital tasks.
What’s attention-grabbing are the disclosures within the doc, which some say characterize a sobering new actuality for probably the most elite of our faculties after it has come underneath scrutiny by the Trump administration and the general public for the way it dealt with hot-button political points on campus.
For these on the correct who suppose Harvard is on the verge of chapter due to its ongoing contretemps with the White Home – together with authorities probes and throttling of federal analysis funds over campus antisemitism – you’re going to be a bit dissatisfied. The varsity maintains the best bond scores – triple-A from Moody’s and Customary & Poor’s, the most important outfits that assess an issuer’s capacity to repay its bonds.
In the meantime, Harvard’s huge $56.9 billion endowment – an funding pool that helps the college fund tasks and dole out monetary assist for college students – returned 11.9% for the fiscal yr ended June 30, 2025.
Folks on the college inform me that the endowment’s returns surpassed the varsity’s long-term “benchmark” or aim of cranking out an 8% return. OK, not dangerous. However the 11.9% endowment beneficial properties didn’t beat the S&P, which was up round 13% throughout that point.
Harvard, in fact, is notoriously selective; simply round 4% of undergrads who apply get in, the prospectus famous. And it’s costly. The all-in value for one yr of undergraduate examine (tuition plus common room and board) stands at $86,926, a 16.6% enhance over the previous 5 years, in response to the doc.
However fewer are making use of, the doc additionally reveals. A nifty chart could be discovered displaying that the varsity acquired roughly 47,800 “first yr” purposes for the 2025-2026 educational yr, down 17% because the 2021-2022 educational yr. Enrollment of first yr college students fell greater than 6% because the 2021-2022 educational yr.
Harvard counters that these numbers are skewed as a result of the varsity final yr reversed a Covid-era “take a look at elective” customary for school candidates, reinstalling standardized exams for the 2025-2026 educational yr, thus its course of is extra selective. One other set of numbers present the present yr’s crop of incoming college students roughly matches the numbers earlier than the take a look at elective mandate went into impact.
Now let’s flip to the varsity’s steadiness sheet, additionally nestled contained in the providing assertion. It’s no secret that personal fairness has its issues: Lackluster returns, and important illiquidity and in a sector often known as “non-public credit score,” or direct loans to enterprise together with software program firms buyers imagine could possibly be upended by synthetic intelligence.
The prospectus didn’t state if Harvard has investments in non-public credit score, but it surely did word that “endowment ends in fiscal yr 2025 had been dampened by having much less public than non-public fairness.”
That’s a technique of it. The individuals at Harvard level out that their cash managers aren’t paid to knock it out of the park on each funding; they’re taking part in the lengthy sport on the lookout for respectable returns inside strict threat parameters.
Within the face of all of this, there’s the White Home’s makes an attempt to slash federal funding; the paperwork included a press release from Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, which famous a continued university-wide hiring freeze in addition to maintaining salaries flat, “painful layoffs,” and “scaled again tasks and expenditures.”
In different phrases, it’s not really easy being elite.
