Trump’s Higher-Ed Compact Is Fine

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | October 9, 2025 | Graham Hillard

[karpov]

If contrariness were an academic discipline, American colleges would lead the world in its study.

Such is the lesson of the Trump administration’s higher-ed “compact,” a 10-point bargain offered to nine elite universities earlier this month. Citing American colleges’ “extraordinary relationship with the U.S. government,” the document asks universities to practice admissions fairness, encourage civil discourse on campus, tackle grade inflation, and undertake several other modest but conservative-coded reforms. In exchange, signatories would receive “priority access to federal funds and looser restraints on overhead costs,” as the New York Times and other outlets have reported.

Trump might as well have defecated on the quad for all the outrage his proposal has generated. Calling the measure “a deal that would end universities’ independence,” the Atlantic warned of presidential ambitions to “impose ideological dominance” on higher education. The Washington Post editorial board scoffed that “no serious university could ever agree” to such demands. (Indeed. Therein lies higher ed’s problem.)

Colleges themselves “overwhelmingly panned” the offer, as Inside Higher Ed reported last week. According to the presidents of Trinity Washington University and Wesleyan University, Trump’s communiqué represents “extortion.” A joint statement from the AFT and the AAUP complained that the proposal “stinks of favoritism, patronage, and bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda.”

Already, blue states have begun to warn their institutions against complying. In what has become his typical, Trump-aping style, California governor Gavin Newsom threatened, “IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, THEY’LL LOSE BILLIONS IN STATE FUNDING.” (Must every political declaration be visible from space?) Pennsylvania Democrats are preparing a measure to prevent state-funded schools from climbing aboard. So may Democrats in New York.

---

TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college

[1Old Pro]

Now let’s defund K-12 where the real damage begins.

[skr]

True. Most people don’t go to college (only about 39% enroll). It’s K-12 where the indoctrination starts. Of course, college is where teachers come from, so it might do some good on that point, but it will take awhile.