The White House has hand-picked nine universities it considers “good actors” to receive a groundbreaking offer: federal grants in exchange for adopting a conservative-leaning “Compact for Academic Excellence.” According to a senior White House adviser, schools like Dartmouth and MIT were chosen because they have a “reformer” president or a board committed to “higher-quality education,” suggesting the administration believes they are amenable to its proposed changes.
This select group, which also includes Vanderbilt, UPenn, USC, UT Austin, Arizona, Brown, and UVA, is now on the front line of a new federal push to reshape higher education. The 10-point compact requires them to become more welcoming to conservative thought, in part by scrapping departments deemed hostile to it, and to end race-conscious admissions, freeze tuition, and limit foreign students.
The premise that these specific universities were chosen for their potential compliance has raised eyebrows. While the White House frames it as a partnership with reform-minded leaders, critics see it as a “divide and conquer” strategy. By targeting a small group with a tempting offer, the administration may hope to create a fracture within higher education, pressuring other institutions to eventually fall in line.
The reaction from outside this chosen circle has been sharp. Governor Gavin Newsom of California, for instance, has preemptively threatened to defund any state university that accepts the deal. This sets up a potential conflict not just between universities and the federal government, but also with their own state governments, placing these “good actors” in an even more precarious position.
Ultimately, the selection of these nine institutions serves as a test case for a much broader agenda. The compact implicitly warns all other universities that their federal funding is contingent on ideological alignment. Whether these nine “good actors” accept the deal or unite with the rest of academia in opposition will be a defining moment for the future of higher education in America.