Universities targeted by Trump have more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the last year
President Donald Trump’s administration has taken aim at a series of elite colleges and universities during his second term
By Molly Reinmann, Annette Choi, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s administration has taken aim at a series of elite colleges and universities during his second term, marking a key effort to exert control over higher education — and one that has required targeted schools to respond accordingly.
While the schools targeted with canceled federal funding have responded with varying levels of what some see as capitulation or pushback, they have also adopted a quieter defense strategy — spending millions of dollars to hire Trump-allied lobbyists and lobbying firms in Washington.
A CNN analysis of federal lobbying disclosures found that Trump’s higher education targets have together spent 122% more in lobbying expenses in Q2 of this year compared with last year. Nine of the 14 institutions more than doubled their spending since last year.
Jodie Ferise, a higher education attorney and former lobbyist and college administrator, told CNN that the spike is both unique and unsurprising.
“I can’t think of another time when higher ed has been subjected to such a broad based range of attacks, attacks coming from so many different angles,” she said. “There’s a whole bunch of different places that you have to try to mitigate that damage.”
Of the 14 institutions CNN tracked, the University of Michigan and Brown University were among the lowest spenders on lobbying for most of 2024. That changed in 2025.
The University of Michigan reported nearly $400,000 in lobbying expenses the second quarter of 2025 — a 388% jump compared to the same time last year. Brown University spent $270,000 — a 286% increase.
Earlier this year, the University of Michigan made headlines when it abruptly ended its diversity, equity and inclusion programs amid student protests. In the midst of the chaos, the university’s president, Santa Ono, announced his resignation.
Meanwhile, Brown University reported lobbying on several issues in its second-quarter filing, including grant funding disruptions and freezes — as well as Trump’s policy agenda, which was in part responsible for Brown’s increased lobbying spending, Brian Clark, Brown University’s vice president for news and strategic campus communications, told CNN.
“When the impacts of laws or policies might extend across jobs and economies, have implications for national security or competitiveness, or have the potential to impact the health of residents locally or nationally, we do our best to make sure those impacts are clear,” Clark said.
No other targeted universities responded to CNN’s request for comment.
Leading the pack in overall lobbying expenses in 2025 is the University of California system, which has spent more than $2 million on lobbyists this year alone, CNN found. Earlier this month, CNN reported that the administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Other top spenders include Northwestern University, which has spent nearly $1.4 million on lobbyists so far this year as negotiations toward a potential settlement continue. And Columbia reported upwards of $1 million in lobbying expenses, in addition to the $221 million settlement the university reached with the administration last month.
Ferise compared running a university to “running a little city.” Administrators make strategic decisions about where to allocate funds. In the current political climate, she said, hiring lobbyists “is just a cost of doing business that has really, really, really increased.”
“If they’re at risk of losing tens of millions, and some have hundreds of millions of dollars of federal research funding, then that is a high- risk proposition,” said John Pistole, president emeritus of Anderson University and former administrator of the TSA and former deputy director of the FBI. “It’s common sense. We need to look at what our ROI is for how much we’re going to pay these lobbyists in hopes of retaining or regaining that federal funding.”
The figures include spending by the schools both on in-house lobbyists and external firms hired to lobby on their behalf.
Overall, the targeted schools primarily relied on in-house lobbyists. All but one school — the University of Michigan — spent at least half of its total lobbying expenses in the first two quarters of 2025 on internal lobbyists. Still, some externally hired firms with close Trump ties have raked in six-figure sums from these universities so far this year.
Harvard and Michigan have recruited Brian Ballard, who raised more than $50 million for Trump’s 2024 campaign. His Ballard Partners is the former employer of several high-ranking Trump aides, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Daniel Murphy, who directed Trump’s first transition team in 2016, has been hired to lobby on behalf of Columbia, the University of Michigan, the University of California and the University of Pennsylvania, CNN found. His firm, BGR Government Affairs, has made more than $700,000 so far this year from these schools.
Cornell, Northwestern, and Johns Hopkins have hired Miller Strategies’ Jeffrey Miller, a veteran Republican ally who, among other things, has served as the finance chair of President Trump’s second inauguration earlier this year, the finance chair of the 2020 Republican National Convention, and an advisor to former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
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