A group of alumni and former professors of Columbia University warn in a new report that the university could stand to lose up to $3.5 billion a year—or up to 55 percent of the university’s annual operating budget—if Columbia doesn’t start cracking down on campus rule-breaking.
The report, published by Stand Columbia Society, a “politically neutral” collective working to restore Columbia’s “rightful pre-eminence in American—and global—higher education,” states the potential financial risks to the university are rooted in Trump and other Republican officials’ “enmity for elite institutions in general, and our alma mater in particular.”
Alexandra Zubko, a 1999 graduate of Columbia and member of Stand Columbia, told The Free Press that the group published the Institutional Risk Exposure report because “we don’t want Columbia to be made an example of.”
The report estimates what might happen if the incoming Trump administration were to accuse universities like Columbia of violating Title VI, the section of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance,” which would allow the administration to withhold federal funding.
At present, Columbia has at least three active Title VI investigations into antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment on campus. Since October 7, 2023, Columbia’s campus has been embroiled in chaotic demonstrations against the State of Israel, prompting the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to conclude in a recent report that the university was “the site of some of the most disturbing and extreme antisemitic conduct violations in the country.”
Put another way, Stand Columbia Society predicts that Republicans may force “an uncomfortable reckoning that we can no longer wish away.” That reckoning—which Stand Columbia believes is possible, if not probable—could potentially cost the university up to $1.33 billion in government grants and contracts that it currently receives, including around $800 million dedicated solely for research.
And it’s not only federal grants that the university could lose if it is found in violation of Title VI.