Universities propositioned by the White House to receive preferential treatment in terms of federal funding in exchange for agreeing to President Donald Trump’s policy changes are either radio silent or outright rejecting the deal.
The offer consists of a university agreeing to a 10-point set of principles, including a ban on considering sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity and religious associations in admissions or other policies; ensuring a “broad spectrum of ideological viewpoints” on campus; non-discriminatory faculty hiring practices; “institutional neutrality;” clear separation from foreign entanglements; “single-sex” provisions and other requirements.
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In turn, the university could see significant boosts to federal funding. The administration considers the offer a proactive move to fight what it sees as civil rights violations.
“Throughout most of our History, America’s Colleges and Universities have been a Great Strategic Asset of the United States,” Trump said in an Oct. 12 post to Truth Social. “Tragically, however, much of Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with WOKE, SOCIALIST, and ANTI-AMERICAN Ideology that serves as justification for discriminatory practices by Universities that are Unconstitutional and Unlawful.”
Invited to be the first to consider the deal were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth and Brown.
Response
As of Friday, USC, Penn, Brown and MIT have rejected Trump’s compact offer.
The remaining schools — Texas, Arizona, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt and Virginia — have yet to respond or reportedly told the administration that they’re reviewing the proposal.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that sources close to Trump confirmed that the administration has extended the offer to Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University.
Trump is scheduled to meet with officials from the five remaining schools that have yet to decide on his offer.
Catch-22
Complying with Trump’s compact could carry just as much implication for some of the invited universities as would turning it down.
After Trump extended the invite, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, said that any school in his state that agrees to the arrangement would lose state funding.
“CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM,” he said in a statement.
USC is the only California-based university that received Trump’s offer, but Newsom’s ultimatum could be just the first from Democratic governors who have fought the president’s attempts to reform campuses across the country.
Funding freezes
If the invitation into Trump’s compact is the carrot, schools like Columbia University got the stick.
The university settled a legal dispute with the administration in July over allegations that the school failed to protect Jewish students on campus from antisemitic behavior. Columbia agreed to pay a $200 million fine and agreed to several of the provisions offered in Trump’s compact.
Brown University also came to a similar conclusion, paying a $50 million fine later that same month to unfreeze federal funding. While it did make these concessions, Brown is one of the universities that have rejected Trump’s offer.
Mattress money
Should the schools uniformly reject the deal, the administration could retaliate by using federal funding as leverage, as it has with others. Should the invited universities elect to self-fund programs, some are more well-heeled than others.
Of all universities invited, three have endowments north of $20 billion. Others range from USC’s $16 billion endowment as of 2025 down to Arizona, which doesn’t disclose its amount in reserve but is described as less than $1 billion.
Even with the outsized endowment funds, most funds have donor restrictions that prevent the universities from using that money to supplant federal funding that has been frozen.
