As Trump targets Harvard, Greater Boston's economy is in the crosshairs

Boston Globe

12-05-2025

Harvard is the point of origin for hundreds of successful companies, a magnet for ambitious people, and a crucial piece of the innovation economy that has powered Massachusetts' growth in recent decades.
Now much of that ecosystem feels at risk. As the Trump administration pressures Harvard to rework everything from admissions to academics,
Related
:
Advertisement
'We're all just holding our breath figuring out where the impact is coming,' said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association. 'We will be hit, but how much? How deep?'
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
The answer could be dire: Harvard employs 18,000 people and staffs 14 hospitals with medical students. It is among the
Related
:
Advertisement
Even some Harvard supporters question whether a single university should be so wealthy, or so essential to the institutions that make Boston Boston. But talk to entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, real estate experts, and residents, and nearly all agree Harvard is a boon for Massachusetts. Its influence flows from the school's red brick buildings to almost every industry in the state, and anchors a higher education sector that accounts for
@font-face {
font-family: BentonSansCond-Regular;
src: url("https://apps.bostonglobe.com/common/font/bentonsanscond-regular.woff2") format('woff2'),
url("https://apps.bostonglobe.com/common/font/bentonsanscond-regular.woff") format('woff');
font-weight: 600;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: BentonSansCond-Bold;
src: url("https://apps.bostonglobe.com/common/font/bentonsanscond-bold.woff2") format('woff2'),
url("https://apps.bostonglobe.com/common/font/bentonsanscond-bold.woff") format('woff');
font-weight: 600;
font-style: normal;
}
.dnddicesarea__container{
display: block;
max-width: 750px;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
background-color: #fff;
}
.cvsillotitle {
font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
font-size: 20px;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 1.28;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
padding: 0;
margin-top: 25px;
}
.cvsillotextblurb {
font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: 800;
line-height: 1.28;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
padding: 10px 10px 10px 0;
letter-spacing: .5px;
}
.cvsillotextblurb span {
font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: 800;
line-height: 1.28;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
padding: 0 0 10px 0;
letter-spacing: .5px;
}
/* Dek styles */
.cvsillo-well__dek {
font-family: "BentonSansCond-Bold", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
font-size: 28px;
font-weight: 200;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
padding-right: 10px;
margin-left: 10px;
line-height: 1.2;
}
.cvsillo-well__dekblurb {
font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 800;
line-height: 1.2;
text-align: center;
color: #000;
margin-bottom: 10px;
letter-spacing: .5px;
padding: 0 0 0px 0;
}
/* Link box styles */
.cvsillolinks {
font-family: "BentonSansCond-Regular", "Impact", "Arial Narrow", "Helvetica", sans-serif;
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 2;
letter-spacing: .8px;
background-color: #fff;
color: #333;
cursor: pointer;
padding: 5px;
border: none;
text-align: left;
transition: 0.4s;
margin: 0px 0;
width: 100%;
}
.abovecredline {
width: 100%;
display: block;
border-bottom: 0px solid rgba(000, 000, 000,1);
height: 1px;
background: #56849b;
margin-bottom: 4px;
margin-top: 4px;
text-align: center;
}
/* Flex layout for responsive card grid */
.cvsillo-well__top-links {
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
justify-content: space-between;
gap: 20px;
margin-top: 0px;
}
/* Default: 2 per row (fallback for smallest viewports) */
.cvsillo-well__related-container {
flex: 1 1 calc(50% - 10px);
max-width: calc(50% - 10px);
}
/* Medium screens: 3 per row */
@media (min-width: 600px) {
.cvsillo-well__related-container {
flex: 1 1 calc(20.333% - 10px);
max-width: calc(33.333% - 10px);
}
}
.cvsillo-well__related-container {
position: relative;
}
/* Show vertical divider between 2-per-row items, EXCEPT the last item */
.cvsillo-well__related-container:not(:nth-child(4n)):not(:last-child)::after {
content: "";
position: absolute;
top: 10%;
right: -10px;
width: 1px;
height: 80%;
background-color: #ccc;
}
/* Remove all dividers on desktop (4-per-row or more) */
@media (min-width: 1000px) {
.cvsillo-well__related-container::after {
content: none;
}
}
Harvard and the Mass. economy, by the numbers
The university is a major employer and landowner on both sides of the Charles River, who spends billions at state businesses to maintain its operations.
$1.45 billion
The amount spend by Harvard at Massachusetts businesses annually
18,718
The number of Massachusetts residents directly employed by Harvard
6,793
The number of international students at Harvard and its extension school in fall 2024
51,500
Estimate of Harvard alumni that live in Massachusetts
At least 160
The number of startups launched around Harvard research since 2013
Around 500
The number of buildings Harvard owns on both sides of the Charles River
1,350
The number of new housing units in Allston-Brighton that came out of Harvard partnerships
SOURCE: Harvard 2023 Facts & Impacts Report and data from its Office of Institutional Research; RYAN HUDDLE/GLOBE STAFF
All considered, a weaker Harvard would mean a weaker Massachusetts with less cutting-edge research, fewer tourists, and consequences for the street-level businesses that rely on the bustle of a college town. Kneecapping the
'What kind of a city and area are we going to leave to the next generation, 10, 20, 30 years from now?' she asked. 'Having to think about our survival is jarring.'
Michael Schrader cannot tell the story of Vaxess, the Woburn life science company he cofounded, without Harvard University.
Neither Schrader nor his three partners would've moved to Boston if not for Harvard. They learned of the technology that powers Vaxess in a 'Commercializing Science' course at Harvard Business School.
Kate Skrada, a senior research associate in immunology at Vaxess, a Cambridge biotech startup, is pictured in 2022.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
The financial showdown between the White House and Harvard now poses a threat to every step of that journey, from the original science to the eventual spinoff, which develops needle- and refrigeration-free patches for vaccines and other medical therapies.
Advertisement
A federal funding freeze could force Harvard to pull back resources for aspiring entrepreneurs like Schrader.
Related
:
Harvard and its peer institutions have already initiated layoffs, closed labs, and reduced graduate admissions to steel themselves against financial challenges.
'The whole Vaxess journey was seeded at Harvard,' Schrader said. 'It took seven years of living out of its i-Lab and Life Lab, surviving off of grants, competition winnings, and early stage funding to find our footing. Without it, more companies will not survive through that period of iterating and evolving.'
Related
:
Indeed, colleges and companies have long been intertwined here. Universities played a key role in Massachusetts' transformation from post-industrial backwater to one of the most prosperous places in the US. MIT partnered with the Pentagon to open the Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington in the 1950s, helping turn Route 128 into 'America's Technology Highway.' Young people poured out of college campuses into white-collar jobs, aiding Greater Boston's shift from manufacturing to a managerial economy that leads the way in robotics, software, and biotechnology.
A researcher at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
'It's because of all of these institutions — Harvard is just the 800-pound gorilla we all see — that that change happened,' said Bob Allison, a Boston historian who teaches at Suffolk University and the Harvard Extension School.
Advertisement
An explosion of graduate students in the past 30 years at Harvard and elsewhere helped draw blue-chip companies and lucrative jobs. Kendall Square emerged as a global hub for life sciences, sparking a wave of new construction that continues to this day. Biotech companies, such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Gingko Bioworks, planted themselves in shiny Seaport towers. And in 2018, a defunct envelope factory near Union Square in Somerville
Related
:
Today, Harvard alone spends over $500 million annually buying research materials and equipment from local suppliers. Many of those biotech firms are already seeing a softening in sales amid tariffs, the pullback in federal funding, and
A spokesperson for Qiagen, a German research supplier to Harvard, Tufts, and University of Massachusetts, said its customers have already become more cautious on spending. Shares for Waltham-based Thermo Fisher have dropped
Salvatore Russello, chief executive of New England Biolabs, said the Ipswich company can stave off pain in the short-term, but needs the steady flow of colleges and industrial clients to operate as usual.
Related
:
'Massachusetts is the center of the biotechnology universe, and our economy depends on it,' he said. 'We depend on it.'
Also at risk now is the brainpower from abroad that keeps the state on its pedestal.
Advertisement
Pedestrians walk along Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
MassChallenge chief executive Cait Brumme said half of the firms in the accelerator's new program were founded
outside the country, though a drop-off in foreign talent is all but certain now. At the Harvard Pagliuca Life Lab in Allston, 70 percent of companies are run by international founders.
'The state is doing a lot to make the case that we are leading the pack nationally,' Brumme said. 'But if our research institutions don't feel cutting-edge with the nation backing you, we know that the
Ultimately, fewer startups will mean fewer full-grown companies. Harvard's Office of Technology Development has licensed more than 90 startups in just the past five years, and nearly all the venture capital funding for Massachusetts biotechnology companies in 2023 went to companies with Harvard alumni in their executive suites or boardrooms. Harvard and MIT dependably create a disproportionate share of returns for venture capital firms, said Rob Biederman, managing partner at Boston's based Asymmetric Capital.
Jeff Bussgang, general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, put it bluntly.
'Any company you can name,' he said, 'I can tell you the roots to Harvard.'
After the 2008 recession, the stability of academic institutions — Harvard included — propped up home values in Greater Boston and spared the region from the worst of the housing crash. But since January, the tumult on campus is filtering into the housing market, especially short-term rentals to visiting scholars, whose appointments may be hampered by visa troubles and impending cuts.
Advertisement
'It's a ghost town,' said Dino Confalone, chair-elect of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. 'The Airbnb community is going to get decimated over the next few months.'
If colleges pull back from their real investments, it could worsen a market already struggling with soaring housing costs and slumping demand for commercial space.
Related
:
Look at Allston-Brighton, where Harvard has erected gargantuan new academic buildings on Western Avenue, renovated parks, and built 1,300 new homes — roughly 25 percent of which are set aside at affordable prices. Its quarter-century-long expansion into Allston has sparked concerns of
faux progress and gentrification. Yet nearly a quarter of Harvard's commercial property in the neighborhood remains empty, according to
The Enterprise Reasearch Campus at 100 Western Avenue in Allston.
John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
But for its faults, Harvard is 'a true community partner, not an adversary,' said Allston Civic Association president Tony Disidoro. Losing its support would leave the neighborhood worse off.
Though construction continues on the gigantic Enterprise Research Campus, signs of hesitation are growing. In an April meeting, for example, Harvard representatives turned down a community request to boost funding for housing in Allston. MIT also plans to delay work on its vast real estate holdings in Cambridge, the Globe reported.
Related
:
'I don't know if they are pulling back and being conservative because they don't know what the future holds,' Disidoro said. 'But that's certainly what it seems like.'
That could translate into fewer success stories like Esther Ravitz, who credits Harvard with helping her become a homeowner. A kindergarten teacher at The Shaloh School in Brighton, Ravitz had tired of spending the bulk of her earnings on rent. But buying in the neighborhood where she has lived for two decades felt out of the question.
The only listing that fit her budget? A condo in a 20-unit development on Antwerp Street, built on a parcel donated by Harvard. That contribution allowed 12 of the apartments to be priced below market value; Ravitz managed to buy one, for just $250,000.
'My hands were tied, then this apartment opened,' said Ravitz, who lives in a two-bedroom with her 10-year-old daughter. 'It was like I won the lottery.'
But the good luck is vanishing, as federal mandates jostle Harvard's standing on the world stage and begin to dribble out in unexpected ways.
The Longfellow House, for example, a national historic site on Brattle Street that was once the headquarters of George Washington, cannot pay its $110 annual fee to the Harvard Square Business Association due to the disappearance of federal dollars. And the owner of Brattle Square Florist fears that floral orders for Harvard events — a fifth of the small business' sales — could go away.
The home where George Washington slept at the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge.
Globe Freelance
Daniel Berger-Jones, founder of tour operator
'It's one thing when a cultural trend shifts a little bit,' he said. 'It's another when the government picks up the whole terrarium and rattles it.'
It's not happening all at once, like the destruction that swept through in the early days of the pandemic. Customers are still buying pens at Bob Slate Stationer and 3-D cards at Lovepop. And though Harvard employees can sometimes be found huddled at Russell Street Tavern, venting about the attacks aimed at the university, there are no signs yet that business will slow down, said owner Patrick Lee, the restaurateur behind the Grafton Group.
'We're taking it step by step to see what may lie ahead, but we're also hoping for the best and that it resolves itself,' he said. 'Talk to me in three months, and I hope I'll have the same answer.'
Diti Kohli can be reached at
Follow Us
Subscribe Now
My Account
Contact
More
©
2025 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC