Trump administration investigating Harvard over international students’ financial aid

The Trump administration on Monday announced that it is investigating Harvard University after alleging that it excluded some students who are U.S. citizens from financial aid.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will open a compliance review of the university to determine if Harvard’s “China-based financial aid programs and practices exclude American-citizen students, in violation Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin,” according to a DOJ statement.

“Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said.

The agency did not specify which scholarship programs were under review, noting that it “has not reached any conclusions.”

The Civil Rights Division audited Harvard’s disclosures, raising concerns about its compliance with Title VI’s anti-discrimination requirements.

“Harvard appears to be accepting these funds and, in adherence to their restrictions, providing student financial aid to foreign students, presumably Chinese, based on their national origin –– to the potential detriment of students of other national origins, including American citizens,” the DOJ stated.

Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton told The Hill that the Cambridge, Mass.-based university “follows the law for required reporting of donations and, consistent with our legal obligations under Title VI, does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid.”

U.S. law requires that universities report gifts and contracts from foreign sources exceeding $250,000 in a year. Harvard has accepted $630 million from Chinese sources over the decades, according to federal disclosures. It has received a total of $4.5 billion in foreign funding.

Harvard has been one of the Trump administration’s top targets in its crackdown on higher education across the country, particularly in response to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming and the reaction to pro-Palestinian protests and alleged campus antisemitism following the start of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.

The Ivy League school in May called on a federal judge to dismiss the administration’s lawsuit accusing the university of antisemitism by failing to protect Israeli and Jewish students. It claimed that the government’s complaint relied on “a snapshot in time that does not exist today” and provided a long list of steps taken by Harvard to ward off antisemitism.

In June 2025, Harvard sued the Trump administration after President Trump barred it from enrolling new international students. He had claimed that U.S. students were not getting into Harvard because foreign students were taking their spots.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.