Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference; The New York Times, October 2, 2025

 Michael C. Bender , The New York Times; Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference

[Kip Currier: Be clear-eyed that this "compact" is an unprecedented assault on the independence and academic freedom of American colleges and universities.  It is transparent transactionalism, instantiating a mob-style "protection money" framework in order for universities to secure and retain federal research monies. 

It is also another step in the authoritarian playbook.

The notion that higher education institutions -- whose missions are to advance knowledge, the arts, science, and the common good -- would be incentivized to pledge contractual support to a political administration is antithetical to the bedrock principles of our Founding Fathers and the 1st Amendment of our U.S. Constitution.]

[Excerpt]

"The White House on Wednesday sent letters to nine of the nation’s top public and private universities, urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump’s political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds.

The letters came attached to a 10-page “compact” that serves as a sort of priority statement for the administration’s educational goals — the most comprehensive accounting to date of what Mr. Trump aims to achieve from an unparalleled, monthslong pressure campaign on academia.

The compact would require colleges to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender. Among other steps, universities would also be required to change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”"