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PERSPECTIVE

Tackling America’s diploma divide

What’s really driving the Trump administration’s war against elite universities

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    • Universities and their graduates are increasingly disliked by broad swaths of the US electorate. Beating up pointy-headed academics makes for excellent politics, even if it is terrible policy.
    • Universities and their graduates are increasingly disliked by broad swaths of the US electorate. Beating up pointy-headed academics makes for excellent politics, even if it is terrible policy. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

    Andrés Velasco

    Published Sat, Jun 7, 2025 · 06:00 AM

    [LONDON] Why is US President Donald Trump going after Harvard University and other elite colleges? The official reason is antisemitism, but over 600 Harvard professors, many of them Jewish, think that charge is ludicrous.

    Economics cannot be the reason, either. Higher education is a wildly successful industry that accounts for 4.5 million American jobs. Leaving that industry without foreign customers by refusing to issue them visas is bonkers.

    The actual reason is Politics 101. Universities and their graduates are increasingly disliked by broad swaths of the US electorate. Beating up pointy-headed academics makes for excellent politics, even if it is terrible policy.

    Donald TrumpHarvard UniversityPerspective

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