White House calls on universities to agree to demands for expanded access to federal funding

By Betsy Klein, CNN

(CNN) — The White House is asking nine major colleges and universities to sign onto a series of demands in return for expanded access to federal funding.

The letters sent to schools on Wednesday mark an unprecedented effort by the Trump administration to employ the power of the federal government to reshape higher education in line with President Donald Trump’s agenda.

In what is described as a “compact for academic excellence in higher education,” top Trump officials are calling for these schools to implement policies to remove factors like sex and ethnicity from admissions consideration, to foster “a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus” with “no single ideology dominant, both along political and other relevant lines,” and to assess faculty and staff viewpoints, according to a copy of the document obtained by CNN.

The compact, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, also calls for a commitment to “grade integrity” and a mandatory five-year freeze on tuition costs.

Signing onto the compact will provide these universities “a competitive advantage,” a White House official said. The schools that choose to enter into the agreement “would be given priority for grants when possible as well as invitations for White House events and discussions with officials.”

The letters were sent to a mix of public and private schools, according to the official: Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Austin, University of Arizona, Brown University and University of Virginia.

The schools that sign on, the document says, must commit to reforming or shuttering “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

Among other things, it also requires a 15% cap on international students and the adoption of definitions of gender “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”

The administration underscored that those “values” would be tied to expanded federal funding.

“Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits,” reads the compact.

A letter to each university signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, White House Domestic Policy Council director Vince Haley and White House adviser May Mailman describes the compact as an opportunity for “the proactive improvement of higher education for the betterment of the country.”

Signing on, they wrote, “will yield multiple positive benefits for the school, including allowance for increased overhead payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and other federal partnerships.”

When it comes to enforcement, agreeing to the compact will require participating in an annual “anonymous poll” of faculty, students and staff to assess compliance.

CNN has reached out to each of the nine schools for comment and to ask whether they plan to sign on.

University of Texas System Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife said in a statement that the system is “honored” that University of Texas at Austin was included by the White House.

“We enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately,” Eltife said.

The University of Virginia, spokesperson Brian Coy said, has received the letter and is reviewing it via a newly created working group. The university has not yet made a decision, Coy said. MIT and USC are also reviewing the letter, according to spokespeople for both schools.

Discussions about the compact document have dated back to even before Trump took office. An initial copy was drafted in December, according to a source familiar with the matter, with edits and changes made collaboratively since the president returned to the White House.

Asked whether schools’ existing federal research funding could be at risk if they opt out of the compact, the source suggested it could be.

“Existing is all past. The things that they (the schools) get are all as a result of decisions taken previously. What this compact is about is the new day – if you want to do business with the federal government: do you want visas? Do you want grants? Do you want loan programs? Do you want, do you want? Then you’ll sign the contract,” the source said.

Notably, the Trump administration had already reached a $50 million deal with Brown to restore the school’s federal funding, and the University of Pennsylvania had also reached an agreement with the Trump administration regarding transgender athletes.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mailman said the initial nine schools that received the letters were selected because “they have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education.”

The letter accompanying the compact said that the agreement was “largely in its final form,” but that “limited, targeted feedback” would be welcomed, with the hope to have a final agreement and initial signatories “no later than November 21, 2025.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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