A list of demands sent by Donald Trump to a group of top universities represents an administration “flexing its muscles” and testing the limits of federal authority, according to scholars.
The letter promises the nine institutions continued access to federal funding and preferential treatment under the tax code, among other guarantees, if they agree to the demands, which include freezing tuition fees, capping international students and protecting “conservative ideas”.
Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science at UCL, told?探花视频?that some universities, such as Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, were likely chosen because they are seen as “bastions of progressive politics”.
Other prestigious colleges, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Virginia may be “symbolic pressure points”.
“The choice looks less about these specific schools per se and more about using prominent institutions as foils to advance Trump’s broader higher-ed agenda,” said Gift.
“In that sense, there is an?element of divide and conquer.?If the nine schools accept the terms, it isolates them from the rest of the sector; if they refuse, it sets them up as examples of obstruction.”
The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”,?the latest attempt by Trump to force widescale changes across the sector, was also sent to Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Texas, and the University of Arizona.
Andrew Moran, professor of politics and international relations at London Metropolitan University, said?this strategy of dividing and conquering?had allowed Trump to successfully “pick off” institutions one by one.
“There is an argument now being made that?because universities like Columbia backed down, and that the Trump administration regards those as victories, that it may well encourage them to go further.”
Harvard University,?which has had a long-running battle with the White House,?is close to making its own deal worth around $500 million, according to Trump himself.
Gift said freezing tuition in some subjects for five years would likely have the biggest financial and operational impact, because universities are already struggling to balance rising costs against political pressures to keep tuition affordable.
But restricting international student numbers to a maximum of 15 per cent of the undergraduate population would also be “extremely consequential”, he said, particularly for institutions like USC, where the foreign student population is over 20 per cent. The demands also include a proviso that no more than 5 per cent can be from one country.
“International students are critical to both the finances and the intellectual vibrancy of these campuses,” said Gift. “Capping them not only threatens budgets but also undercuts universities’ global standing.”
Other demands are more symbolic – requiring all applicants to take a standardised SAT or ACT test, or “fighting grade inflation”. Gift said these continue the narrative that universities have “abandoned academic rigour in favour of political correctness”, while others are fuelled in the culture war.
These include policies protecting “conservative ideas” and restrictions around political demonstrations. Another demanded all university employees “abstain in their official capacity from actions or speech related to politics”.
Moran said academics should be very concerned by a government determining the kind of language that “can and can’t be said in institutions”.
“What we are seeing is an administration that is flexing its muscles and identifying university education as something that it was going to deal with.”
Carolyn Fast, director of higher education policy and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, said there were academic freedom concerns around the demand for colleges to take steps against "institutional units" that criticise conservative ideas.
“Tying federal support to the adoption of particular political perspectives risks undermining the core principle that the government should not dictate or privilege any political viewpoint.”
While some of the proposals may seem reasonable on their own, Gift said they represent a “significant assertion of federal authority over universities’ self-governance” when taken together.
“Whether or not these proposals gain traction, the larger point is that Trump is signalling a willingness to use access to federal dollars as a lever to reshape higher education along ideological lines.”
The American Association of University Professors urged all nine institutions to reject the “loyalty oath”, which it said would represent a “profound betrayal” of students, staff and democracy and would transform a consenting university into a “weapon of the executive branch”.
“To give preferential treatment to colleges and universities that court government favour stinks of favouritism, patronage, and bribery in exchange for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda. It is entirely corrupt.”
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