The White House is expanding its outreach to universities on President Donald Trump’s higher education “compact,” inviting new schools to a Friday meeting after early invitees, including MIT and Brown, rejected the proposal that ties funding advantages to campus policy changes, according to administration officials and university statements, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Trump administration has asked Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas, and Arizona State University to join a Friday meeting about the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” alongside earlier invitees Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, the University of Texas, and the University of Arizona, people familiar with the plan said.
The White House says the session is to gather input and refine language after several schools declined to sign.
The compact promises “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” for institutions that adopt a set of operating principles.
Key provisions include a five-year tuition freeze, a 15% cap on international undergraduate enrollment, and bans on the use of race or sex in admissions and hiring, according to the administration’s memo and summaries from higher education groups.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first of the nine initial universities to say no.
In a campus letter, President Sally Kornbluth wrote that while MIT upholds many academic standards, “scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”
USC and the University of Pennsylvania followed with rejections this week. Brown University declined on Wednesday, citing academic freedom and autonomy.
With no signatories yet, the administration scheduled a call with the remaining undecided schools for Friday.
The Associated Press reported the White House is pressing for decisions ahead of an Oct. 20 deadline.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, sworn in as the 13th U.S. secretary of education, is expected to participate, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The White House frames the compact as a bid to restore merit and ideological balance on campus.
Earlier this month, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “much of Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with WOKE, SOCIALIST, and ANTI-AMERICAN Ideology.”
Some universities say the conditions go too far.
Brown’s president told McMahon the terms would undermine academic freedom and conflict with prior understandings about federal limits over curriculum and scholarship.
MIT said acceptance would compromise institutional independence, according to Reuters.
Arizona State, newly invited to weigh in, has a large international student population and has repeatedly been ranked the top public university choice for international students, raising potential concerns about a 15% cap.
ASU’s recent updates show tens of thousands of global students on campus.
Similar rhetoric about “ending woke ideology” in higher education has accompanied the administration’s broader agenda this year, including public remarks threatening enforcement against schools that “illegally discriminate based on race or sex.”
As of Oct. 17, no university has publicly agreed to sign the compact, while at least four have rejected it, according to university statements and news reports.
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