On October 1st, 2025, the U.S Department of Education sent out a letter to nine universities titled the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”, the newest edition of the Trump administration’s attack on American universities. The Compact offers the academies extended access to federal allocation, in return for agreeing to a series of harrowing directives. The Trump administration has cracked down on schools since the start of 2025; however, this new missive hits the nail on the head.
The Compact for Academic Excellence’s demands primarily target universities’ decision-making and their program content. The basis that started off the compact was “equal opportunities for everyone” where universities treat their students as individuals and not based on their identities, with an expectation for sex-based privacy, fairness and safety. “Immutable characteristics, particularly race, do not permit unequal treatment, including in grading as well as access to buildings, spaces, scholarships, programming, and other university resources.” If universities were to submit to this demand, all equity-inclusive systems would be terminated—no safe spaces, no identity-based organizations, and no aid for the underrepresented; however, they would be considered “priority” for federal grants and White House invitations to talk with officials.
The Trump administration has been targeting and “investigating” universities across the country in pursuit of “improving American education.” In January of 2025, the White House sent out a letter dedicated to the removal of “Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Prefrencing.” The goal was to exterminate DEI and related programs, “holding agencies accountable to ensure employment practices focus solely on individual performance and skills, rather than DEI factors.” Getting rid of valuable systems that foster community and intersectionality was the wrong first step of Trump’s second presidency.
Eight out of the nine schools have rejected the Department of Education’s offer: the University of Southern California, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Arizona. The University of Texas at Austin has yet to announce its decision, which is angering alumni and faculty. (Brown University had previously reached an agreement with the Trump administration back in the summer of 2025, yet now they have gone back on their word.)
Signing these demands, as the President of Dartmouth College, Sian Leah Beilock said, would “compromise academic freedom, the ability to govern ourselves, and the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas.”
Amid all the injunctions, there was a call for an explicit limitation on universities’ international student population. No more than 15% of the undergraduate student population should be in the Student Visa Exchange Program, and no more than 5% should be from any one country. While the Compact for Academic Excellence encourages universities to keep lowering their costs and to continue economic aid programs, the Trump administration fails to recognize that private universities rely heavily on their international students, who pay full price. This will eventually result not in a tuition fee decrease but an immense increase.
The majority of American college students rely on financial aid and scholarships to pay for school, with those who can afford the full cost of private universities being in the 1%. Not only will the removal of international students decrease the range of world views and campus diversity, but it will also create an imbalance in college tuition.
To ensure that the schools are following the White House’s orders, each university will be tasked with annually conducting an anonymous poll of its students, staff, and faculty, “providing them the opportunity to evaluate the university’s performance against this compact.” In addition, the survey results will be made public and available on the university’s website for all to see. Therefore, each university, while being exempt from the Trump administration’s federal investigations, will have to produce a survey each year to review its compliance with the letters’ demands.
The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, better known as the Compact for “Seizing Control of Higher Education”, will not be the last of incursions on education from the Trump Administration, nor is it the first. The Compact for Academic Excellence is a warning to all colleges, universities, secondary, and primary schools. Those who prioritize educational opportunities for everyone need to keep their wits about them to preserve academic freedom and the separation of mass republican ideals.
