Trump’s Higher-Ed Compact Is Fine
From The James G. Martin Center For Academic Renewal
If contrariness were an academic discipline, American colleges would lead the world in its study.
Such is the lesson of the Trump administration’s higher-ed “compact,” a 10-point bargain offered to nine elite universities earlier this month. Citing American colleges’ “extraordinary relationship with the U.S. government,” the document asks universities to practice admissions fairness, encourage civil discourse on campus, tackle grade inflation, and undertake several other modest but conservative-coded reforms. In exchange, signatories would receive “priority access to federal funds and looser restraints on overhead costs,” as the New York Times and other outlets have reported.
Trump might as well have defecated on the quad for all the outrage his proposal has generated. Calling the measure “a deal that would end universities’ independence,” the Atlantic warned of presidential ambitions to “impose ideological dominance” on higher education. The Washington Post editorial board scoffed that “no serious university could ever agree” to such demands. (Indeed. Therein lies higher ed’s problem.)