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Education Secretary Linda E. McMahon said Thursday that the Trump administration was close to finalizing a settlement with Harvard, renewing claims by the White House that Harvard is making progress toward a deal that would resolve a series of ongoing federal investigations.

“They’re ongoing negotiations and I feel very comfortable that we are getting close to having those negotiations finalized,” McMahon said at a White House press briefing. “It’s been an open-door conversation all along.”

McMahon’s remarks Thursday aren’t the first time the Trump administration has said it is close to a settlement with Harvard.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the White House was on the verge of finalizing a deal with Harvard. When he first announced in June that talks had resumed, he predicted that an agreement would be reached “in the next week or so.”

More than four months later, no deal has been announced.

Trump previously told reporters in the Oval Office on Sept. 30 that the White House had “reached a deal” for a settlement with Harvard before clarifying that the agreement had not yet been finalized.

“All you have to do is paper it, right?” Trump said to McMahon. “It’ll be great.”

Trump said in September that reaching a deal would mean that Harvard’s “sins are forgiven.” A settlement would likely resolve multiple federal investigations into the University, which have targeted everything from its ties to the Chinese government to its financial aid formulas. It might also halt attempts to force Harvard to stop enrolling international students and protect the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that Harvard researchers receive each year.

But the pressure on Harvard to accede to a deal lightened somewhat after a series of favorable decisions from federal judges. A judge agreed this summer to Harvard’s requests to temporarily block revocation of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification and a Trump order that would prevent many of Harvard’s international students from entering the U.S. In response to a separate lawsuit by Harvard, a judge agreed to restore billions of dollars in multiyear federal funding that the Trump administration attempted to freeze this spring.

A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

In September, Trump said that under the proposed deal, Harvard would contribute $500 million to an account whose interest and principal would fund the trade school initiative.

“They’ll be teaching people how to do AI and lots of other things. Engines, lots of things,” he said. “It’s a big investment in trade school done by very smart people.”

Other elite universities facing attacks from Trump, including Cornell and Brown, have agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars on vocational training programs.

Talks between the administration and Harvard had previously stalled following the ruling that restored Harvard’s access to federal grants and contracts.

Even since then, new complications have arisen — including a “compact” that the Trump administration floated to other universities, which would have offered them preferential access to federal funding in exchange for caps on international enrollment, strict definitions of gender, and the closure or elimination of departments and offices that “belittle” conservative ideas.

The compact heightened doubts that an agreement with the White House would prevent Trump from pushing forward with new demands. It also showed that the administration remains interested in conditions that would impact universities’ hiring and admissions decisions and subject schools to external reviews — intrusive demands that could prove harder for Harvard to swallow.

The latest round of negotiations pushed forward with the help of billionaire Harvard Business School alum Stephen A. Schwarzman, a close ally of the president, The New York Times reported in October.

While the White House has publicly discussed details of the settlement on many occasions, Harvard’s top brass has provided little insight into the negotiations. When asked by a Crimson reporter outside a meeting of Harvard’s governing boards in September, Harvard Corporation chair Penny Pritzker responded that she had “absolutely no idea” about the outcome of the settlement talks.

“I’ve heard the Trump administration say that,” she added when pressed about the $500 million figure.

In her remarks Thursday, McMahon did not provide any additional details regarding the settlement.

—Staff writer Avani B. Rai can be reached at avani.rai@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @avaniiiirai.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.