MIT Says It Will Not Sign Trump Admin’s Higher Education Compact

MIT is the first of the nine universities invited to join the compact to publicly reject it.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass., on May 25, 2025. Learner Liu/The Epoch Times

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has declined to sign on to the Trump administration’s proposed compact, which would mandate campus reforms in exchange for preferential access to federal funding.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth announced the decision on Oct. 10 in a campus-wide letter that included her formal response to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who invited nine universities to sign the new agreement.

The proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” would require participating universities to freeze tuition for five years, limit international student enrollment, and adopt the federal government’s biology-based definitions of sex and gender when it comes to sports or single-sex spaces.

Other provisions call for reinstating the SAT requirement for applicants, curbing grade inflation, prohibiting the use of race and sex as factors in admissions or employment, and reforming or dismantling departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

MIT ‘Cannot Support the Proposed Approach’

In her response, Kornbluth acknowledged that MIT shares some of the administration’s stated goals, such as focusing on merit, reducing costs for students, and upholding free expression.

“These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent,” Kornbluth wrote. “We freely choose these values because they’re right, and we live by them because they support our mission—work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health, and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.”

She also said MIT disagreed with a number of the demands, which she said “would restrict freedom of expression and [MIT’s] independence as an institution.” According to her, the premise of the document is inconsistent with MIT’s core belief that “scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,” Kornbluth wrote.

“In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”

MIT is the first of the nine universities invited to join the compact to publicly reject it. The administration also invited Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.

It is unclear why those particular institutions were chosen or whether other schools will be offered the same terms.

The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Mixed Reactions Across Invited Schools

Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania have publicly addressed the compact, emphasizing their commitment to academic autonomy but stopping short of outright rejecting it.

Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock, for example, wrote that she was “deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend [its] fierce independence,” noting that the university “will never compromise [its] academic freedom and ... ability to govern [itself].”

University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson said he would seek input from the campus community, including the Ivy League school’s trustees and faculty, before making any decision on the compact.

By contrast, University of Texas System Board of Regents Chairman Kevin Eltife, a former Republican state senator, said the university was “honored” to be among those selected and that the board would “review the compact immediately.”

“We welcome the new opportunity presented to us, and we look forward to working with the Trump administration on it,” Eltife said in a statement to student newspaper The Daily Texan.

Democratic States Threaten Funding Cuts

Some Democratic state leaders have moved to discourage universities from signing the compact by threatening to withhold funding.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has warned that any institution in his state that signs the agreement will lose state funding, including access to Cal Grants, the state’s largest financial aid program.

In Virginia, Democrats in the state Senate issued a similar warning to the University of Virginia, threatening “significant consequences in future Virginia budget cycles” if the university joins the compact.

The University of Virginia responded with a noncommittal statement, as reported by the student newspaper The Cavalier Daily, reiterating that its decisions would be guided by the university’s founding principles of integrity and academic freedom.

Two Pennsylvania lawmakers have also said they want to bar colleges that receive state funding from signing on to the compact.