Harvard Spent $580,000 on Federal Lobbying During Bacow’s Final Full Year in Office

Harvard spent $580,000 lobbying the federal government in 2022 — the highest dollar amount of all Ivy League institutions for the sixth time in the past seven years.

The University’s lobbying expenditures rose for the second consecutive year, increasing by $20,000 from last year’s total. Before 2021, Harvard’s spending had declined over a three-year period, previously peaking in 2017 when the University shelled out $610,000 on federal lobbying.

Harvard, which maintains an office of federal relations in Washington, lobbied the government last year on issues including the excise tax placed on large university endowments, immigration reform, federal research investments, and funding for students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Harvard University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that strong federal research investments are “particularly important this year in the effort to fund those commitments that passed as a part of the bipartisan Chips & Science Act.”

The CHIPS for America Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last August, seeks to invest in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, promote research and development, and protect supply chain security.

The University also supported increased funding for higher education last year.

Harvard — a longtime supporter of increased Pell Grant funding — continued to lobby for the ​​​​Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act, which seeks to expand eligibility for the grant and increase maximum funding amounts.

Harvard also supported the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the Future Act and the National Science Foundation for the Future Act, which would fund the NIST and NSF through 2026.

The University also lobbied for immigration reform last year, supporting the Dream Act and the American Dream and Promise Act. The bills aim to create new pathways to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program beneficiaries, also known as Dreamers.

Immigration reform has been a longstanding priority for University President Lawrence S. Bacow since the early months of his presidency. He has penned several letters to government officials in support of the DACA program during his tenure.

Harvard also lobbied lawmakers to provide Ukrainian and Afghan scholars with additional visa and travel support, according to the public lobbying disclosure form.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, shortly after Biden decided to pull the last remaining American troops out of the country.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, resulting in millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing to neighboring countries. Harvard affiliates with ties to Ukraine and Russia previously criticized the University’s response to the crisis created by the war.

Bacow traveled to Washington in May 2022 to lobby Republican and Democratic lawmakers against the endowment tax, which requires universities with endowments exceeding $500,000 per student to pay a 1.4 percent excise tax, as well as proposals that would tighten disclosure requirements for researchers receiving foreign funding.

Bacow met with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer ’71 (D-N.Y.), Senator Mike K. Braun (R-Ind.), and outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh during his lobbying trip last May.

Bacow has remained actively engaged in Harvard’s lobbying priorities throughout his presidency, according to Newton.

Harvard’s lobbying expenditures accounted for more than 20 percent of the $2.6 million that Ivy League universities spent lobbying the federal government.

Yale spent $530,000 on lobbying last year, trailing just behind Harvard as the second highest spender in the Ivy League. Princeton and Cornell spent $430,000 and $480,000, respectively. Columbia, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania reported the lowest expenditures in 2022, reflecting the trend in previous years.

No data could be obtained for Dartmouth’s lobbying spending in 2022. In the past several years, Dartmouth has consistently fallen below the minimum mandated disclosure threshold for lobbying expenditures.

Columbia, Princeton, and Brown saw modest increases in their lobbying expenses since 2021. In 2022, Cornell matched its expenditures from the previous year, while Yale saw a slight decrease. The University of Pennsylvania reported spending nearly half as much last year on lobbying than the year before.

—Staff writer Miles J. Herszenhorn can be reached at miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MHerszenhorn.

—Staff writer Claire Yuan can be reached at claire.yuan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @claireyuan33.