Trump Administration's "Compact for Academic Excellence" Offers Elite Universities Preferential Funding for Policy Compliance

Washington:

The Trump Administration is requesting nine prestigious universities to sign a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" that would align them with the President's policy priorities in exchange for preferential access to federal funding.

This agreement would require universities to embrace the White House's positions on several contentious issues including admissions policies, women's athletics, freedom of expression, student disciplinary procedures, and college affordability.

According to an anonymous White House official not authorized to discuss the initiative publicly, institutions that sign would receive priority consideration for certain federal grants, though funding would not be exclusively limited to participating schools. Signatory institutions would also gain enhanced access to White House events and administration officials.

The 10-page document, obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, requires universities to adopt the government's gender definition for campus facilities and women's sports teams. It mandates the elimination of demographic considerations including race and gender from admissions processes and requires undergraduate applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores.

This proposal was dispatched Wednesday to a select group of elite public and private institutions: Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas, University of Arizona, Brown University, and University of Virginia. The criteria for selecting these particular institutions remains unclear, as does whether additional colleges might receive similar invitations.

Kevin Eltife, Chair of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, expressed that they were "honored" by the Austin campus's inclusion in the compact and its "potential funding advantages." "Today we welcome the new opportunity presented to us and we look forward to working with the Trump Administration on it," Eltife stated.

Representatives from the other eight institutions did not immediately respond to comment requests.

The administration has previously leveraged federal funding to influence institutional policies, withdrawing research funding from universities including Harvard and Columbia while seeking changes to their governance structures and policies.

Under the proposed compact, international student enrollment would be restricted to 15% of an undergraduate student body—a threshold many prestigious institutions currently exceed—with no more than 5% allowed from any single country.

Participating institutions would be required to freeze tuition rates for American students for five years, and the wealthiest universities would need to eliminate tuition entirely for students pursuing "hard science programs."

Regarding free speech, the agreement demands that universities promote diverse viewpoints on campus, including "transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas."

Each participating university would be required to commission annual polls of students and faculty to evaluate compliance with the agreement. The Justice Department would enforce these terms, with violations resulting in at least one year of lost access to the compact's benefits. Subsequent violations would extend this penalty to two years.

"Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below," the compact states, "if the institution elects to forego federal benefits."