The president slammed the institution as not "exactly forthcoming."
President Donald Trump has taken another swing at Harvard University amid an escalating legal battle with the institution over enrolling foreign students.
"Why isn't Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING toward their student's education, nor do they ever intend to," Trump said in a message posted early Sunday morning on his social platform Truth Social. "Nobody told us that!"
Harvard lists its international student enrollment at nearly 7,000, or 27% of all enrollment, on an easy-to-Google website. International students usually pay more of their education costs than U.S. citizens.
Trump continued, "We want to know who those foreign students are, a reasonable request since we give Harvard BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, but Harvard isn't exactly forthcoming."
Trump wrapped up his scathing message by telling the university that it needs to "stop asking" the federal government for more funds.
"We want those names and countries. Harvard has $52,000,000, use it, and stop asking for the Federal Government to continue GRANTING money to you!" he added, while missing a few zeros in his reference to Harvard's $52 billion endowment.
Last week, the Trump administration barred the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university from enrolling foreign students. The action, which was announced Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security, means thousands of current students must transfer to other schools or leave the country.
The department alleged that Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment for Jewish students. It also accused Harvard of "coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus."
Harvard, which filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the ban, slammed the action in a statement.
"This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard's academic and research mission," the university said.
In the lawsuit filed early Friday in federal court in Boston, the Ivy League school called out the government's ban as a violation of the Constitution and warned that it would have an "immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders."
The Trump administration's move to revoke the school's ability to enroll international students was temporarily blocked Friday by a judge.
Back in April, Harvard rejected a list of demands Trump had sent the school amid an ongoing review of several universities' DEI programs as well as allegations of "antisemitism."