endowment

Harvard's endowment is large enough to weather the loss of federal funding.

With a $53.2bn endowment - a figure that is larger than the GDP of some small countries - Harvard is uniquely able to weather the storm.

Anticipating broad, across-the-board reductions in government funding, potential increased taxes on endowments, and a decline in international student enrollment under the Trump administration, campuses have also instituted across-the-board hiring freezes.

Their gift also includes a multimillion-dollar endowment to support Tate's curatorial research.

Yet Columbia is among the few American institutions with the resources to fight back, with an endowment of about $15 billion.