President Donald Trump during a news conference in the Oval Office on Friday, said he is in favor of allowing international students on U.S. college campuses, clarifying he is against welcoming students who are “causing trouble.”
Singling out Harvard University, which has come under fire in both public opinion and the courts, Trump noted nearly 30% of its students are foreign.
“Our country has given $5 billion plus to Harvard over a short period of time,” he said. “Nobody knew that. We found that out. I wouldn’t say that was a [Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)] thing, but we found that out over a period of time, that was sort of a Trump thing.”
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During ongoing litigation, which the president attributed to the university being “very anti-semitic,” he said the administration found out that the government gave them more than $5 billion in funding.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs on Thursday upheld a court order blocking the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which allows the university to sponsor international students for U.S. visas.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cited Harvard’s alleged pattern of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” in calls for the repeal of Harvard’s SEVP certification.
“We’re having it out with them, and let’s see what happens,” Trump said. “I think we have a very good, well, it’s a very sad case. It’s a case we win. We can’t lose that case because we have the right to make grants. We’re not going to make any grants like that.”
He went on to say Harvard has not “been acting very nicely,” and argued other institutions like Columbia University in New York City “want to get to the bottom of the problem.”
“They’ve acted very well, and there are other institutions, too, that are acting, but Harvard’s trying to be a big shot,” Trump said. “And all that happens is every three days, we find another $100 million that was given.”
Two days ago, the president said his administration had found an additional $200 million in grants given to Harvard.
“The money’s given to them like gravy,” he said.
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Offering an alternative, Trump said he would like to see the money go toward creating the world’s best trade school system.
“I’d like to see the money go to trade schools where people learn how to fix motors and engines, where people learn how to build rocket ships,” he said. “Because, you know, somebody has to build those rocket ships.”
“Yep,” Elon Musk, who departed DOGE on Friday, chimed in from beside the president’s desk.
“I’d like to see trade schools set up, because you could take $5 billion plus hundreds of billions more, which is what’s spent, and you could have the greatest trade school system anywhere in the world,” Trump continued. “That’s what we need to build his rockets and robots and things that he’s doing, and to build lots of other things.”
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He added he went to school with peers who could “fix the engine of a car better than anybody I’ve ever seen” and “take it apart blindfolded.”
Jarod Coffman, owner of the Colorado-based business Coffman Construction, told “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday that houses built in the U.S. are the most expensive they have ever been, yet the contractors building the homes are the least educated they have ever been.
“We are at a little bit of a turning point where there are schools starting to re-implement trade programs into them, which is good, but a lot of them are facing budget issues, so actually I could really see this being a beneficial thing,” Coffman said.
He added it would address the housing deficit, while decreasing costs and providing education.
“It’s a very skilled job,” Trump said. “I’d like to see a lot of money going into trade schools. I’ve always felt that, and we probably found our pot of gold, and that’s what’s been wasted at places like Harvard.”
Harvard did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch and Taylor Penley contributed to this report.
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