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WASHINGTON — <\/span>President Donald Trump is demanding a $1 billion payment from Harvard University to end his prolonged standoff<\/a> with the Ivy League campus, doubling the amount he sought previously as both sides appear to move further from reaching a deal.<\/p>\n The president raised the stakes on social media Monday night, saying Harvard has been \u201cbehaving very badly.\u201d He said the university must pay the government directly as part of any deal \u2014 something Harvard has opposed \u2014 and that his administration wants \u201cnothing further to do\u201d with Harvard in the future.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s comments on Truth Social came in response to a New York Times report saying the president had dropped his demand for a financial payment, lowering the bar for a deal. Trump denied he was backing down.<\/p>\n Harvard officials did not immediately comment.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s outburst appears to leave both sides firmly entrenched in a conflict that Trump previously said was nearing an end.<\/p>\n Last June, Trump said a deal was just days away and that Harvard had acted \u201cextremely appropriately\u201d during negotiations. He later said an agreement was being finalized<\/a> that would require Harvard to put $500 million toward the creation of a \u201cseries of trade schools\u201d rather than a payment to the government.<\/p>\n That deal appears to have fallen apart entirely. In his social media post, Trump said the trade school proposal had been turned down because it was \u201cconvoluted\u201d and \u201cwholly inadequate.\u201d<\/p>\n Harvard has long been Trump\u2019s top target in his administration\u2019s campaign to bring the nation\u2019s most prestigious universities to heel. His officials have cut billions of dollars in Harvard\u2019s federal research funding and attempted to block it from enrolling foreign students<\/a> after the campus rebuffed a series of government demands last April.<\/p>\n The White House has said it\u2019s punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus.<\/p>\n In a pair of lawsuits, Harvard said it\u2019s being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration\u2019s views. A federal judge agreed in December, reversing the funding cuts<\/a> and calling the antisemitism argument a \u201csmokescreen.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s latest escalation comes as other parts of his higher education campaign are teetering.<\/p>\n Last fall, the White House invited nine universities to join a \u201ccompact\u201d that offered funding priority in exchange for adopting Trump\u2019s agenda. None of the schools accepted. In January, the administration abandoned its legal defense<\/a> of an Education Department document threatening to cut schools\u2019 funding over diversity, equity and inclusion policies.<\/p>\n When he took office for his second term, Trump made it a priority to go after elite universities that he said had been overrun by liberal thinking and anti-Jewish bias. His officials have frozen huge sums of research funding, which colleges have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.<\/p>\n Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list<\/a> of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n