Colleges turn down Trump's "compact" agreement offer

State of play: The "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education," terms are in line with Trump's education priorities.

• The pact requires universities to cap enrollment of international students, commit to strict definitions of gender, freeze tuition for five years, conduct merit-based faculty hiring, and ban race and gender in admissions decisions.
• Several of the schools the Trump administration approached about the compact previously had funding disputes over changes in their research policy or DEI initiatives.
• Agreeing to the pact would have given the universities priority for grants and invitations to White House events.

Driving the news: The University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California and the University of Virginia have all rejected the compact.

• Vanderbilt University, in a Monday statement from university chancellor Daniel Diermeier, said it would continue to share input with the administration and that research awards should be made on merit alone.
• The University of Texas suggested it might be open to signing the compact, Axios Austin previously reported. The school did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

Zoom out: Several of the schools publicly challenged some of the guidelines and expectations listed in the pact.

• MIT's values and practices "meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent," the university's president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Oct. 10.
• On Monday, Suresh Garimella, the University of Arizona's president, wrote in a letter: "We seek no special treatment and believe in our ability to compete for federally funded research strictly on merit."
• "I do not believe that the involvement of the government through a compact — whether it is a Republican- or Democratic-led White House — is the right way to focus America's leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission," Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock wrote.

The other side: When asked for comment on Wednesday, the White House referred Axios to May Mailman's recent appearance on Fox Business. Mailman, who has been at the helm of Trump's university crackdown, left the administration in August but continues to advise the White House on these projects, the New York Times reported.

• "Universities should only get funding if they're going to be a benefit for Americans on the other side of it," she said in the interview. "There's research that, absolutely, I think the federal government has an interest in funding. But there's research that shouldn't be."

Friction point: Mailman claimed that "a lot of these universities are not saying no" to the pact, though several have provided outright declinations regarding the Trump proposal.

The big picture: A coalition of more than two dozen education organizations has also opposed the Trump administration's offer, saying its conditions "run counter to the interests of institutions, students, scholars and the nation itself."

• "The compact is a step in the wrong direction," they said. "The dictates set by it are harmful for higher education and our entire nation, no matter your politics. We urge the administration to reverse course and withdraw the compact."

Go deeper: Trump administration sharpens framework for university funding settlements

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Sian Leah Beilock is the president of Dartmouth College (not Brown University).