By the start of last week, Harvard University had signaled its readiness to meet President Trump’s demand that it spend $500 million to settle its damaging, monthslong battle with the administration and restore its critical research funding. Then, two days after The New York Times reported that Harvard was open to such a financial commitment, the White House announced a far cheaper deal with Brown University: $50 million, doled out over a decade, to bolster state work force development programs. The terms stunned officials at Harvard, who marveled that another Ivy League school got away with paying so little, according...