On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal revealed that the Trump administration has proposed a significant deal to nine universities: manage your institutions in accordance with the administration’s priorities and receive substantial federal grants and additional advantages. Universities that do not accept this offer risk losing federal funding and programs that are crucial for their operations. This proposal has been communicated to a selection of both state and private institutions and includes stipulations that could allow the government to influence various aspects of university governance, from hiring practices to admissions policies, while also encouraging conservative ideologies on campus.
The institutions receiving this proposal include prominent names such as the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia. According to independent sources, this initiative is expected to be extended to all colleges and universities nationwide.
Ars Technica has obtained a copy of the proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which clarifies the terms of this arrangement. The introduction states that while institutions of higher learning may choose to adopt different models and values, they will need to forgo federal benefits if they do so. These benefits include essential resources such as student loans, research funding, federal contracts, tax advantages, and immigration visas for students and faculty.
The importance of these programs makes it difficult to envision how a university could effectively function without access to them, thus framing this proposal more like an ultimatum rather than a genuine agreement.
Concerns about Admission Standards
The Compact would require universities to defer to federal oversight concerning admissions standards. Specifically, the government mandates that decisions be based solely on “objective” metrics like GPA and standardized test scores, which the institutions would also be required to publish on their websites. Additionally, they would need to provide anonymized data comparing the outcomes of admitted and rejected applicants relative to these standards.
