I’m proud of the decision made by the University of Pennsylvania, my alma mater, to reject the compact the Trump administration asked nine universities to agree to. In exchange for preferential funding, Penn and others were asked to cede a measure of their autonomy and academic freedom to the direction of the administration. Penn’s decision to reject that offer was made in the face of enormous pressure, and it meant rejecting some money payments that were implied or proposed if Penn said “yes.” Note that Trump spent his last two years as an undergraduate at Penn.
I first wrote a short note about this situation on October 7th. See “Ben Franklin Is Rolling Over in His Grave” at the Kotok Report. Jurist News describes the compact this way:
The compact is a proposal from the Trump administration to nine major US universities to adopt certain policies in exchange for funding advantages. Those policies include not using race, gender, and other characteristics in the admissions process, capping international student enrollment at 15 percent, and “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” The compact also requires schools to define gender according to reproductive function and prevent people who are transgender from using the bathrooms or competing in the sports of their gender identity.
Universities Respond
So far, eight of the nine schools the Trump administration reached out to with its proposed compact have declined to enter into the agreement. Brown University, Dartmouth College, MIT, the University of Southern California, the University of Virginia, the University of Arizona and Vanderbilt have also declined, while the University of Texas at Austin has not yet returned a decision.
At UT Austin, Kevin Eltife, the chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, initially posted a strongly positive statement about working with the administration, but some students have expressed other views and organized to protest, and the Texas Faculty Association has issued a statement condemning the compact as “an attack on academic freedom.”
Back at Penn, President J. Larry Jameson provided to the administration “focused feedback highlighting areas of existing alignment as well as substantive concerns.”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth objected to principles in the compact which would, “restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution,” noting further that “the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”
Suresh Garmella, President of the University of Arizona, in his update today, stated that the university had declined to sign the agreement, noting that “principles like academic freedom, merit-based research funding, and institutional independence are foundational and must be preserved.”
Higher Education Under Pressure
Will other schools around the country join the eight in standing up to pressure and call instead for educational and academic freedom? How about smaller schools where the endowment funds are not as deep as those at the universities listed above? Their pressures are intensifying as well. In fact, in an October 12 post on Truth Social, Trump appeared to extend his “offer” of a compact to other universities on a broad basis, writing,
To those Universities that continue to illegally discriminate based on Race or Sex, we will continue our current efforts to swiftly and forcefully enforce Federal Law. But for those Institutions that want to quickly return to the pursuit of Truth and Achievement, they are invited to enter into a forward looking Agreement with the Federal Government to help bring about the Golden Age of Academic Excellence in Higher Education.
Other schools have not yet received an official invitation.
Declining Enrollments, Financial Implications
Many schools now face enrollment issues since there is a decline in the number of foreign students coming to America. Higher education was an American export. And the buyers came to us and paid cash. Trump administration policies have scared some foreign students away. Some schools have had to cancel classes for lack of sufficient students to support the class. Others have had to make financial adjustments to maintain their enrollments. Remember, it takes both students and payments to make a school’s budget. “Cheeks in seats — or derrières in chairs, as an English teacher I know would put it — without sufficient money is better than empty seats, but budgets still require payments.
Big Picture
The entire community of higher education is under attack except for those schools that choose to meet ideological tests or those schools that willingly forego any federal money or subsidy that is related to federal money. The premier role that US universities have long played in research also falls into jeopardy as the administration decides who gets funding based on political alignment, using preferential funding as a carrot and denial of funding as a stick.
Below is a reading list for anyone interested in higher education in America.
Reading List
“University of Pennsylvania declines to sign Trump’s higher-education compact” | WHYY, https://whyy.org/articles/penn-trump-higher-education-compact/
“The White House Sent Its Compact to 9 Universities. Here’s What Their Administrators and Faculty Are Saying” | Chronicle of Higher Education (create free account to read one article), https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-white-house-sent-its-compact-to-9-universities-heres-what-their-administrators-and-faculty-are-saying
“‘A perfect storm’ — more colleges at risk as enrollment falls and financial pressures mount” | CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/colleges-at-risk.html
“What to Know About Trump’s Funding ‘Compact’ for Colleges” | TIME, https://time.com/7325448/trump-higher-education-universities-compact-dei-gender-academic-federal-funding/
“With Compact, Universities Weigh Whether to Give Up Freedoms for Unknown Payout” Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2025/10/08/how-trumps-compact-threatens-higher-ed-funding
