Trump Admin Asks Colleges to Sign 'Compact' : strict gender def, freeze tuition, no belittling conservative ideas

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/us/politics/trump-college-funding.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU8.-iYk.PxAMlMY1nRtx&smid=url-share

Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference
Demands sent to nine top schools included pledging to freeze tuition for five years and to commit to strict definitions of gender.

The White House on Wednesday sent letters to nine of the nation’s top public and private universities, urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump’s political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds.

The letters came attached to a 10-page “compact” that serves as a sort of priority statement for the administration’s educational goals — the most comprehensive accounting to date of what Mr. Trump aims to achieve from an unparalleled, monthslong pressure campaign on academia.

The compact would require colleges to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender. Among other steps, universities would also be required to change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

Colleges that sign the agreement would receive “multiple positive benefits," according to a letter included with the compact signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon; Vince Haley, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; and May Mailman, the White House’s senior adviser for special projec