Transcription
This is my kitchen table and also my filing system. Over much of the past three decades, I've been an investor, the highest calling of mankind. I've often thought was private equity. And then I started interviewing. Oh, I watch your interviews because I know how to do something. I've learned in doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. I asked him how much he wanted. He said, 250. I said, Fine. I didn't negotiate with him. I didn't know due diligence. I have something I'd like to sell and how they stay there. You don't feel inadequate now because being only the second wealthiest man in the world. Is that right?
The oldest university in the United States is Harvard University. It's also one of the most respected universities in the United States. But recently, there's been some challenges by the federal government, the way Harvard is operating. I had a chance recently to sit down with Alan Garber, the president of Harvard University, to talk about the challenges the federal government now faces and the challenges of American higher education.
Harvard is America's oldest university, founded in 1636. It's a very famous university, maybe the most famous university in the world. But recently, it's been in the news because Harvard sued the federal government, which was a very unusual thing for Harvard to do. Why did Harvard sue the federal government? And what's the status of that case?
Well, I can only tell you a little bit about the status of the case, except what's publicly known, which is that, uh, that we received a favorable judgment in district court. And I think you're referring to the lawsuit in which we allege First Amendment violations, as well as procedural violations by the federal government when they cut off our funding. And we we sued because they cut off our funding. We should be very clear about that. It was done in a precipitous manner without any real process. We really had no choice because we had hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. And I want to point out one other thing. This was not in the form of gifts or subsidies. It was payment for research that we were performing at the behest of the federal government. We were fulfilling our obligations under the terms of the grants and contracts that the federal government issued.
So how much money was frozen? It's a little bit hard to be precise, but on the order of $600 million. 600 million was frozen. Some of that has now come back to Harvard. Yes. Right. So to make up the gap, is Harvard getting that money and giving it to the people doing the research out of its own funds or you have special fundraising or how do you make up the gap?
There was a long period in which we did not have the funding, and the Central University used its resources to help the investigators continue with some of their work. Not all of the work could be funded by the university and the schools that are part of the university. What's important to recognize is that there was very critical work that could not be stopped, but we could not really afford to make up for all of the lost money from the federal government.
Now, people sometimes say, well, Harvard has an endowment that's, let's say, over $50 billion, so you have plenty of money. Why couldn't you just take some of that $50 billion and use it for the research? Well, of course, the endowment is a very important source of revenue. One thing that is important to realize about the endowment is that it's heavily restricted. So, for example, we have funds to pay for individual professorships. We have funds that are dedicated to a particular research center. Funds of that kind. They cannot be used for other purposes. So that's one restriction that makes it very hard to treat this like some giant piggy bank where we can take our funds when we need them on a rainy day.
There's a second consideration as well, which is that the most of the terms under which people gave money for the endowment include an obligation that this should be sustainable. And what that really means is that future generations should have access to the same resources that we have today. So that limits how rapidly you can spend from the endowment.
There's an endowment tax that was put in under the first Trump administration and it was increased in this current administration. Do you see any real justification for that tax? And is it impacting Harvard adversely or other schools like Harvard? The endowment tax clearly is. It's a substantial tax, particularly for universities like Harvard, that are expected to be in the top tier. And of course, it's some it's damaging because, for example, so much of our financial aid, the scholarships that we give our students are funded through the endowment and it funds the research. It funds all kinds of activities in the university. So, yes, it's quite damaging. All right. In terms of addressing the problems that we are accused of and that, I believe was part of the rationale for passing the endowment tax, the tax is only going to make it harder to address these issues. Not easier.
The early days of Harvard and most universities in United States didn't get money from the federal government. After World War Two, the federal government dramatically increased the amount of money given to universities for research. Do you think that was a good thing for the U.S. government to do that? And you think the universities became too dependent on the federal government, or do you think they've benefited? And it's really been good for the country to do this.
The period that you're referring to was really set into motion by a report by Vannevar Bush, who had written a book called The Endless Frontier, and he argued that it would be more efficient for the federal government to support research by working with universities than pursuing more of a European style model where there would be independent research institutes. The federal government would pay for everything. That's what set in motion what became a real boom in innovation, in science and technology in the United States. I would add that in addition to the funding that went to universities to conduct research, the country benefited from an influx of immigrants who were some of the greatest scientists in the world, largely at the point in the postwar period and actually during the war and just before the war, largely European scientists. That combination made the US the world leader in science and technology.
On the early part of the 20th century, if one were to say what were the greatest universities in the world, the United States might not have had the top universities. And is that because the federal government's been supporting and also because the endowments have grown? I would say it's all of the above. But I would also say that we have had over the past many decades a relentless focus on attracting the best talent in the entire world. It takes resources, but the resources are not only financial, the resources are human resources. And we have done an amazing job in attracting great talent from all over the world. So that combination is what enabled the U.S. to be so successful.
Harvard was sued for discriminating on admissions, although it went to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled against Harvard. How has Harvard changed its admissions policies to conform with what the Supreme Court now says is the law? Well, we had announced in the first official communication upon the release of the Supreme Court's decision that we would adhere to the law, not change our values and principles, but we would certainly adhere to the law. The specific measures that we have taken have been many. We've made sure that in the admissions process, nobody involved in making a decision about admissions has access to the check the box, what's your race, what's your ethnicity, etc.. So they don't have access to that information. Of course, if there's an interview in an essay, aspects of identity will come up. But we do not have we do not provide that information to the admissions officers where people identify. And I would add that we train them to make sure that they don't consider these characteristics that are that are prohibited from consideration in through the setting of a decision.
You talk about immigrants and how the major universities have brought a lot of immigrants over, and they were great faculty members and researchers. What about getting foreign students today to American universities? Do you actually feel that foreign students are now afraid to apply because of visa problems or they think they won't get in because there's going to be some discrimination against foreign students? How has the whole concern in Washington about foreign students and foreign faculty affected Harvard?
For many programs, there is a lot of hesitancy about initiate, about attending college or attending graduate school in the U.S. because of uncertainty about visa status and whether that could be taken away. At the same time, this year, we've had a lot of success and the students who were actually admitted virtually from from other countries, virtually all of them have been able to attend. So where it's too early to have a confident answer to your question. But we are worried and I want to say one other thing. They aren't strictly speaking, students, but postdocs. That is the postdoctoral fellows who work in in our labs, in the hospitals and in other parts of the university. There is some some evidence that fewer of them are applying for jobs in the US.
The hostages have now come back in Israel, but it was the events that led to the hostages being taken and all the people who were killed on October the seventh. That led to protests on campuses. Harvard and other universities had encampments and other types of protests. What has Harvard done since that time to address the concerns that some people have, that Harvard was not sufficiently dealing with anti-Semitism or that Harvard's ability to let people protest wasn't appropriate? How have you changed things, if at all?
We've done a lot to address these issues. And one of the the challenges we face from the beginning concerning the protests is that people claimed that our rules were unclear. What's permissible in a protest? And so one of the first things we did is to develop a set of guidelines basically, that drew upon a document called the University Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, which was created in the early seventies that outlined how we protect protest, but also enable the members of our community to carry on their work without disruption. So we provided some clarity there for anti Semitism and also for the complaints that we heard about anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian incidents. All right. I created two presidential task forces to study the issues and make a set of recommendations. Both of those task forces. I took their work very seriously. It took a lot of time. But they gather data. They did hundreds upon hundreds of interviews, and then they came up with a very lengthy set of recommendations which we have implemented. We're well on the way to implement those.
So you're the 31st president of Harvard University. You were a Harvard undergraduate. Did you ever think when you were a Harvard undergraduate to wind up as president of university someday? Well, back those days, we would have said, What are you smoking?
Let's talk about your background for a moment. Where were you born? In Illinois. Western Illinois. And your parents, were they Harvard graduates? Well, my father didn't go to college and my mother went to the University of Wisconsin. So when you're growing up, the people say Helen is really, really smart. He should go to Harvard. Did you always think you were really talented as an academic kid in high school and you knew you were going to get into Harvard? If people said I was really talented kid and I should go to Harvard? They didn't say it to me. I was a I was a good student.
What class were you at Harvard? Well, I entered with the class of 1977, so I started in 1973. Were any prominent people in your class? If I may sound like I'm bragging. There are a lot of alumni here in the audience, and I bet every one of them is proud of their class. But here, let me brag about my classmates. The person whose face was beneath mine in the freshman Facebook was Bill Gates. What happened to him? He. He dropped out. Dropped out of Germany. Dropped out. You'd think. You ever hear of him again? Yeah, I'd say some of us have heard from him. Well, Steve Ballmer, the Chief justice. Supreme Court. John Roberts. I'm pretty good. Other university presidents. There's a lot of familiar names in my class, so it normally takes four years to graduate from college. How many years of that take you? Three. Three.
So you after three years, what did you decide you want to do? You go to graduate school. You want to do something important like private equity, go into business school, or you didn't want to do that. What did you want to do? Well, I couldn't make up my mind, so I did. I did a PhD in economics and an M.D., Ph.D. in economics and an M.D. But the economics was at Harvard. The M.D. was at Stanford. So I wasn't that bicoastal? A little bit difficult. I had a great experience studying economics at Harvard. I had done enough of the graduate courses at Harvard and that I could shorten the time it took to get a Ph.D. And what I learned in the applications process is sort of other Ph.D. programs would not recognize. They would not give me credit for the Harvard courses.
So you got an M.D. from Stanford, a Ph.D. from from Harvard. What led you back to Stanford? You taught at Stanford, is that right? Yes. For 25 years. 25 years. So you're living in California. The weather's very good. It's a beautiful campus. What propelled you after 25 years to come back to the East Coast to be the provost at Harvard?
Well, I think a lot of people in this audience know Drew Foust. And let me just tell you, she's a very persuasive person. And I had I was chair of the committee to visit the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Internal Medicine. That's how I met Drew. And it brought me back here about once a year. And it was through that that I met her. And she she asked me if I'd be interested in looking at the job of Provost when it opened up in, my initial answer was no, but somehow she got me to change.
So you came back as provost and Drew Foust. And then when Drew retired, Larry Bacow became the president of Harvard. And you stayed as the provost. That's right. And then when Claudine Guay became the president of Harvard, you stayed as the provost. So how many years were you the provost at Harvard? 12 and a half. And for people that don't know what a provost is, what actually do you do when you're a provost?
The provost is the number two officer of the university and the chief academic officer at Harvard. It's it's a relatively new role. There was a provost briefly at the end of World War Two because President Conant was in Washington, the provost kind of around the university, very temporary arrangement. But it really started in modern times in 1991. It's a job that expanded pretty much monotonically over time. And when I took on the job, the provost was responsible for all of the interim faculty initiatives. The deans reported to both the president and the provost, and the provost had a huge role in faculty appointments and promotion, including stepped down as president. You were put in as the interim president of Harvard and now you're the president of Harvard. What's the pleasure of being the president of Harvard?
I was asked on January 1st to step in as interim president on January 2nd, and I knew that being provost was a pretty demanding job, pretty much 24 seven. And I was about to do two jobs. There were 24 seven until I could put a new provost in place. So there's just the sheer volume of work was daunting. And then there's the fact that we were in a crisis, that we were under attack. My answer in normal times would be these are the advantages of being president. This is what's annoying. What I learned by serving in this time is that serving at a time of crisis, I believe, is far more rewarding than serving in normal times. And it's rewarding because you can really make a difference. There is no time like the president to do the job.
Are our students exposed to the full range of serious views about important issues? The fear is that the students who disagree can't express those views or they will be ostracized in some way. We have to overcome that, and I think we're making progress.
Many members of Congress think that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, other major universities that are well known are too liberal. How does Harvard address that? And how do you get a faculty that has more people that are not, quote, liberal? And is that really unrealistic to do that? I think that the core issue is really a question. Are our students exposed to the full range of serious views about important issues? Could be in science. It could be in in my field of economics, could be in political science in all kinds of areas. And there is a risk if the if the faculty lean all in one direction politically, that they won't be capable of presenting views other than their own and therefore our students won't be exposed. Oftentimes, my professors will not reveal what their personal views were. Sometimes they did, but it was never with the idea that you would say only certain views are correct about this issue. That's the problem we have to solve. I think that to fully address this, we do need a wider range of views on campus. It's not just about liberal or conservative. It's on all kinds of dimensions. We need a diversity of views. We need many different views. And we need to create an environment in which our students can speak freely. Because actually, for students, I would say the most pernicious issue about this fear that there is that the faculty are all from one part of the political spectrum. The fear is that the students who disagree can't express those views or they will be ostracized in some way. We have to overcome that, and I think we're making progress.
What percentage of students who come to Harvard College are on some kind of scholarship? You know, the assumption might be that they all are from wealthy families or most of them. What percentage are actually on some kind of scholarship? It's on the order of 60% received financial aid. And I would add that students from families that earn less than $200,000 a year can attend Harvard College tuition free.
Speaking of tuition, many people criticize the high tuitions of private universities in particular, saying that they're all very, very high beyond the means of most middle class families. Why is tuition so high? The cost of providing an education at the kinds of universities that you've mentioned have gone up and up over time in real terms. For many of our universities, that is inflation adjusted terms. The tuition has gone down, and I'm talking about the nominal tuition for the students who don't receive any financial aid. When you take on account financial aid, it's gone down. But the cost of educating one of these students that you educate, is it higher than the actual tuition? Yes.
And you think the American universities today are in danger of not becoming as important to the country or the world as they were ten, 20 years ago because of challenges to the universities? We still think the universities are so strong that they can overcome some of the current challenges and criticisms. I am optimistic about that, but I think is extremely important is for Harvard and our peer institutions, for particularly other research universities, to reestablish trust in our institutions and our mission, because what we've accomplished really would not have been possible without this incredibly successful partnership with the federal government, which has driven the research enterprise, as I said before.
So one final question I want to ask you is I have a seven year old granddaughter and she's very smart. And I'm just wondering, is there an early, early, early decision process that Harvard has or would you consider starting one? So. I mean, she's very talented. So would you consider early, early decision for people that age or not? Well, David, I have to ask you, how is her pitching arm? It's better than some of the pitchers that I have. There you go. Well, maybe she could be on the athletic teams, but if you had to do it all over again, when they ask you to be the president of Harvard, would you have said yes or no? I would have said yes with less hesitation.