Trump says Harvard shouldn't be tax-exempt -- but do voters agree? What poll found

Brendan Rascius, The Charlotte Observer on May 7, 2025

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President Donald Trump has called for Harvard University — an elite institution that has clashed with the White House — to lose its tax-exempt status. But what do voters think?

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status,” Trump wrote in a May 2 post on Truth Social. “It’s what they deserve!”

The president’s statement came after the Ivy League school sued the government to stop a federal freeze of more than $2 billion in grants and spurned the administration’s demand to curb on-campus activism.

Trump has previously suggested increasing the university’s tax burden, writing on Truth Social in April that maybe it should “be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

Since it’s registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational institution, the Massachusetts university — like most private and public colleges — is spared from paying many taxes, including state sales taxes and the federal excise tax.

But under existing law, the IRS could revoke a university’s tax-exempt status only if it is shown to have violated the requirements of Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, according to Politico.

“There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” a Harvard spokesperson told the outlet. “Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission. It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation.”

According to a new Economist/YouGov poll, Americans are divided over whether Harvard’s status should be changed.

What the poll found

In the poll — which sampled 1,850 U.S. adults May 2-5 — a plurality of respondents, 41%, said they would support the government removing the university’s tax-exempt status, while 36% said they would oppose it. Twenty-three percent said they weren’t sure.

The results, however, were starkly divided based on partisan affiliation.

The majority of Republicans, 66%, said they favored the Trump administration’s position, while 64% of Democrats said they opposed it. Independents were about evenly split, with 37% in favor and 34% opposed.

Older voters were also more likely to side with the administration. Forty-four percent of those aged 65 and older said they supported removing Harvard’s current status, while 29% of 18- to 29-year-olds said the same.

A plurality of respondents, 42%, also said they would describe Harvard’s ideology as liberal or very liberal, while just 8% described it as conservative. Seventeen percent said it was moderate, and 33% said they weren’t sure.

The poll — which has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points — also found most respondents have a positive view of Harvard.

Fifty-seven percent said they had a favorable view towards the Massachusetts university, while just 24% said they had an unfavorable view.

By comparison, most other higher education institutions sampled received lower ratings, including Columbia University, which garnered a favorability rating of 44%.

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