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1h ago

White House Offers Funding Edge to 9 Universities That Sign New Higher-Ed Compact

The proposal ties preferential federal access to sweeping campus changes, escalating the administration’s months-long pressure campaign on elite schools.

FILE - Students walk past the "Great Dome" atop Building 10 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass, April 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
FILE - Passers-by walk and ride along a path on the campus of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., Monday, Oct. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
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Students walk past the Faye and Joe Wyatt Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 27, 2023.

Overview

  • Letters sent Wednesday invite Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Penn, USC, MIT, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona, Brown, and the University of Virginia to become initial signatories, with feedback sought and a decision requested by Nov. 21.
  • The 10-page compact conditions priority for grants and other benefits on five-year tuition freezes, required SAT/ACT testing, bans on using race or sex in admissions and hiring, and adoption of biological definitions of gender for bathrooms, locker rooms and women’s sports.
  • The plan caps international undergraduates at 15% with no more than 5% from any single country and presses schools to foster a “vibrant marketplace of ideas,” including transforming or abolishing units seen as hostile to conservative viewpoints.
  • Compliance would be policed through annual anonymous polling and Justice Department review, with violations costing at least a year of compact benefits and two years for subsequent breaches.
  • University responses varied as Texas regents welcomed engagement and others said they were reviewing, while higher-education groups warned of threats to institutional independence and noted recent court pushback that restored funding to Harvard.