{"id":2319,"date":"2025-10-20T21:36:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/?p=2319"},"modified":"2025-10-21T14:17:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T14:17:42","slug":"universities-give-cold-shoulder-to-trump-compact-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/20\/universities-give-cold-shoulder-to-trump-compact-offer\/","title":{"rendered":"Universities give cold shoulder to Trump compact offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump’s\u00a0college compact<\/a>\u00a0offer has fallen flat. <\/p>\n

As of Monday’s deadline to get back to the administration, at least six prominent universities have publicly rejected the deal<\/a>, which offers favorable federal funding status in exchange for institutional changes, while none have accepted it. The general theme of the rejections has centered on the schools’ beliefs the demands violated academic freedoms and their values.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experts say they don\u2019t expect any universities to take the deal, though they are doubtful this will be the last pressure attempt from Trump, who has repeatedly targeted the finances and standing of colleges that defy him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they did underestimate the resistance that they would get and the willingness of institutions across the country to stand together in support of our core values,\u201d\u00a0said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, most of the original nine universities that were offered the compact have rejected it: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of\u00a0Virginia (UVA), the University of Arizona\u00a0and Dartmouth\u00a0College.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said his school has provided feedback on the deal without officially saying yes or no.<\/p>\n

“Last Friday, Vanderbilt participated in a discussion with members of the administration and other university leaders about shaping a productive process for providing such comments. We expect to share our input with the administration through that process,” the statement reads.<\/p>\n

The University of Texas at Austin has not yet issued a public response. It is possible UT could try to walk the line of agreeing to some of the deal’s principles without actually signing on.<\/p>\n

The Hill has reached out to the university for comment.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration said the offer would be expanded, but that these schools were the\u00a0initial\u00a0picks\u00a0because they were seen as \u201chighly reasonable\u201d institutions. A second round of offers might target schools that are more amenable to Trump’s goals in general, potentially allowing him to funnel funds to friendlier colleges.<\/p>\n

The document \u201cincludes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution,\u201d MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

UVA\u00a0said\u00a0its\u00a0concerned\u00a0the preferential treatment\u00a0for funding\u00a0based on\u00a0signing this\u00a0compact,\u00a0and not merit,\u00a0would undermine the reputation of\u00a0the school.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of the vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education,\u201d interim university President Paul Mahoney said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Experts say\u00a0the demands of the Trump administration were\u00a0likely nonstarters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The compact said in exchange for preferential funding treatment, universities had to revamp policies around hiring, admissions, altering campus culture and reducing the number of admitted foreign students.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Universities would not be allowed more than a 15 percent foreign student population; no more than 5 percent of foreign students could be from the same country; and schools with an endowment of\u00a0$2 billion\u00a0could not charge undergraduate tuition to hard sciences majors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Universities would also\u00a0have to\u00a0freeze their effective tuition rates for five years, post the earnings of students who graduated with certain\u00a0majors\u00a0and expand opportunities for service members.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It\u00a0creates an extraordinary amount of intervention by the government\u00a0and the ability of the executive branch to bypass what currently exists\u00a0through law\u00a0…\u00a0I think, frankly, just on a basic level, whoever\u00a0drafted it,\u00a0it’s\u00a0not particularly well drafted,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Austen Parrish, president of the American Association of Law Schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s\u00a0a lot of ambiguity. What does it mean for an international student who\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0believe in American values\u00a0or\u00a0how are you going to provide free scholarships for students that are only in STEM but not in other programs? And what does it mean to consider\u00a0only objective criteria? Are you not allowed to consider some of these personal statements about why\u00a0[students]\u00a0want to join the university?\u201d he added. “There’s\u00a0a lot of problems.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While many in academia agree with the administration there are some problems in higher education that need to be resolved,\u00a0they argue\u00a0that\u00a0the issues\u00a0need to be\u00a0addressed\u00a0by the campuses, not the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLike the University of Chicago,\u00a0there’s internal debates about\u00a0a way\u00a0to think about issues of diversity and the extent to which some of the policies have been undesirable.\u00a0That’s\u00a0the locus to have the debate and resolve it,\u201d said\u00a0Steven\u00a0Durlauf,\u00a0director of the University of Chicago\u2019s\u00a0Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the compact\u00a0appears to be DOA, the\u00a0White House has had success in pressuring concessions out of other universities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Columbia and Brown universities both\u00a0agreed to changes<\/a>\u00a0to disciplinary policies and hiring and admission processes, among other matters,\u00a0in order to\u00a0restore funding frozen under Trump.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While funding was also restored to Harvard\u00a0University through litigation<\/a>, Trump has\u00a0indicated\u00a0the two sides are still in\u00a0negotiations to end some federal investigations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Advocates say now is the time for higher education institutions to band together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am disappointed that schools that have not received the\u00a0letter\u00a0have not already preemptively rejected it,\u201d\u00a0Durlauf\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cI strongly believe the University of Chicago should preemptively reject the compact.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Updated at 9:06 p.m. EDT<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump’s\u00a0college compact\u00a0offer has fallen flat. As of Monday’s deadline to get back to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2320,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319\/revisions\/2320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thetoptenwebhosts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}