President Trump said Tuesday that his administration was close to reaching a multimillion-dollar agreement with Harvard University, which would end a monthslong standoff that had come to symbolize the resistance to the White House’s efforts to reshape higher education.
Harvard, which would become the latest university to strike a deal with the Trump administration, has been seeking an end to a thicket of investigations that the government opened as part of its wide-ranging efforts to bring the university in line with Mr. Trump’s agenda.
“We are in the process of getting very close,” President Trump said in an appearance from the Oval Office. He added that the details were being finalized and said, “They would be paying about $500 million.”
Harvard did not immediately comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks.
Mr. Trump has projected optimism about a deal in the past. In June, he wrote on social media that it was “very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so.” At the time, he predicted that such a settlement would “be ‘mindbogglingly’ HISTORIC, and very good for our Country.”
Harvard and the government spent much of the summer in talks before the negotiations stalled. But the president’s comments on Tuesday followed multiple phone calls to Mr. Trump from Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire chief executive of the Blackstone Group, a huge investment firm that manages more than $1 trillion in assets. Mr. Schwarzman is a graduate of Harvard Business School.
Mr. Schwarzman spoke with Mr. Trump once during the past weekend and again in a phone call on Tuesday, acting as an emissary between the White House and Harvard, according to three people familiar with the conversations who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss them.
Mr. Schwarzman’s involvement was an attempt by Harvard to pierce a division inside the administration between advisers eager to deliver a deal for Mr. Trump and more ideologically driven aides who viewed the terms as too favorable to the university.
A spokeswoman for Blackstone did not immediately comment.
Mr. Trump’s top priority in the deal has been securing a pledge from Harvard to spend $500 million on work force development programs, reflecting his history of focusing on the financial terms of settlements between the government and universities.
But the president’s haste to announce a settlement on Tuesday privately worried some allies who said the turn of events would make it more difficult to extract additional concessions from the university. Mr. Trump initially told reporters that he had “reached a deal” with Harvard before hedging that a deal was close.
Some Trump advisers have argued behind closed doors that one way to strengthen the agreement would be to subject Harvard to an independent monitor who would ensure compliance. Harvard has consistently opposed that idea.
To resolve the dispute, Mr. Trump said the university would be paying an amount that would be the largest sum a university has agreed to spend to reach a settlement with the White House. The money would be expected to go toward vocational and educational programs.
Harvard, through litigation and defiant rhetoric, has positioned itself since the spring as a bulwark for academic freedom and democracy at large, and the potential deal comes weeks after the university won a crucial victory in a federal court.
In early September, a federal judge in Boston ordered the Trump administration to begin restoring billions in federal research grants cut off since the spring, ruling that the government had violated Harvard’s procedural and constitutional rights.
But even as the money began to flow again, the Trump administration’s attacks on the school continued. On Monday, federal officials said they would begin a process that would seek to cut the university off from future funding.
Federal research dollars made up about 11 percent of the university’s operating budget in its 2024 fiscal year.
Harvard’s decision to bargain with Mr. Trump has drawn criticism from liberal benefactors, students and faculty members, many of whom have hoped the school would fight rather than negotiate. As the government and Harvard talked, many saw the nation’s wealthiest university as an imminent victim of extortion, surrendering to a shakedown that could speed the erosion of democratic norms.
Harvard, however, would not be the first elite school to strike an agreement with the Trump administration. In July, the government unveiled agreements with Brown University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.
It has also sought to extract a much larger sum from the University of California, Los Angeles, asking that the school pay more than $1 billion to settle accusations of civil rights violations. A federal judge recently ordered that research funding be restored to U.C.L.A., but university system leaders have also been in talks with the administration.
Speaking on Tuesday about Harvard, Mr. Trump said that the education secretary, Linda McMahon, was “finishing up the final details.” He added that the plan was for Harvard to operate trade schools.
“They are going be teaching people to do A.I. and a lot of other things — engines, lots of things,” he said. “We need people in trade schools.”
Bernard Mokam contributed reporting.
Michael C. Bender is a Times correspondent in Washington.
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education.
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