Every student should read the Trump Administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
In this compact, the Administration is explicitly threatening federal support for colleges and universities that refuse to comply with Trump’s agenda. The agreement includes several core concessions in exchange for federal funding and support:
- “Institutional neutrality at all levels,” banning university employees “from actions or speech relating to societal and political events” while on the job, unless those events have a direct impact on the university.
- Ending DEI programs in undergraduate and graduate student admissions, financial aid programs, and faculty hiring.
- Ensuring “empirically” that conservative viewpoints are represented among faculty, students, and staff at all levels.
- That universities “streamline or eliminate academic programs that fail to serve students.”
- Capping the percentage of international student enrollment at 15% and requiring that international students are “introduced to, and supportive of, American Western values.”
- A commitment to define and interpret gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”
- That universities employ “lawful force” and enact “swift, serious, and consistent sanctions” against disruptive protestors and violent, discriminatory students alike.
- Tuition freezes at signatory schools.
- Free tuition for STEM majors at schools with large endowments.
- Foreign funding disclosures.
- A commitment “that a grade must not be inflated, or deflated, for any non-academic reason.”
Some of these requested concessions are clear culture-war attacks designed to sow fear and division, and we, students, cannot allow them to take hold.
I am glad that my college includes international, immigrant, and queer students. These students make our schools better. Yet, with the overt threats in this compact, my college, Smith, could be punished for enrolling gender non-comforming and immigrant classmates I call friends.
As I seek a degree in the field of political science, I am also deeply worried about the academic implications the compact may have. It is not possible to ban “speech relating to societal and political events” on the job without completely destroying academic programs in the social sciences. If this were implemented strictly, I fear my professors could come under attack simply for instructing a political science class.
Furthermore, the request that universities “streamline or eliminate academic programs that fail to serve students” could empower the Trump administration to pressure universities into ending degree programs it disapproves of, even if those programs lead students to fulfilling careers. What if the Trump administration issues a new memorandum stating that environmental science or gender studies programs “fail to serve students?” Will those programs and others be intimidated out of existence?
I am in agreement with the compact’s provision implementing ‘tuition freezes.’ Universities with large endowments should make college affordable, ending tuition hikes and lowering costs in all programs for all students—not just hard-science students, as the compact suggests.
I hope pieces of its text remind universities of the urgency of the affordability crisis. However, affordability should not be the result of Trump’s overreach; that would be dangerous for our democracy.
As students, we must encourage our colleges to reject the compact and make our universities affordable and intellectually free. Through student journalism, discussions with administrators, public rallies, and other actions, we can make a difference and convince every college to reject Trump’s compact.
Through advocacy on campus, we can come to better agreements with our colleges and universities—that they will lower costs for all, protect academic freedom, and stand up for the rights of immigrant students and other marginalized groups.