As deadline for Trump's colleges compact looms, schools signal dissent

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

October 20, 2025 5:00 AM ET


Monday is the deadline for a handful of universities to agree to a list of commitments that align with the Trump administration's political priorities, in exchange for preferential access to federal funds.

The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education was sent on Oct. 1 to nine colleges — both private and public — and would require schools to bar transgender people from using restrooms or playing in sports that align with their gender identities, freeze tuition for five years, limit international student enrollment, and require standardized tests for admissions, among other things. Of the original nine schools that received the document, as of Sunday night, six have indicated they are not planning on signing.

MIT was the first school to issue a public statement: The document "includes principles with which we disagree," MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Oct. 10. "And fundamentally the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone." Following that rejection, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that all colleges would be able to sign on, not just those that received the letter. Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California followed, with statements "respectfully" declining the offer.

On Friday, the White House held a virtual meeting with colleges that hadn't yet sent rejection notices, including the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. Three additional schools were also invited: Arizona State University, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Kansas, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/10/20/nx-s1-5579618/trump-college-university-compact-uva-mit-dartmouth

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REFERENCES

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143540967
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143540976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143544998
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143548562
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143549410
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143549736

[Prairie Gates]

1. The dirty little secret is that they cannot freeze tuition and limit international students at the same time

Because international students paying full freight have been subsidizing domestic student tuition for the last 20 years. If you limit international students, you collapse that tuition cashflow, so you either have to make it up somewhere else (i.e., tuition increases for domestic students), or you have to cut. Therefore, the clear goal of this compact is to force cuts, and in two specific ways:

1. Cut any programs that are not "GOP friendly" under the guise of productivity and earnings potential. In other words, the arts and humanities have to go.

2. Cut the discount rate for students - the massive discounts that allow mid- and lower-income students to attend universities at all.

This will all happen under the banner of "rightsizing," and most universities will have to do it anyway. The compact is attempting to speed up the process and tack on some other "goodies" for the Stephen Miller contingent, like anti-trans and anti-DEI commitments to go along with the financial exigency.

[J_William_Ryan]

2. All colleges and universities should reject Trump's wrongheaded demands.

Trump’s conditions are motivated by racism and bigotry.

This is yet another example of Trump’s authoritarian excess and overreach.