SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
international students
Trump Pressures Top Universities to Sign 'Extortion Agreement' for Federal Funds
"It is a document of unconditional surrender," one professor said of a compact "urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump's political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds."
Oct 02, 2025
President Donald Trump's war on academia continued this week with letters pressuring the leaders of top universities across the United States to sign his "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" for priority access to federal funding and other "positive benefits."
The New York Times reported that "letters were sent on Wednesday to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia."
The letters "urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump's political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds" were signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and two key White House officials, according to the Times.
The compact, published by the Washington Examiner, states that "no factor such as sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors shall be considered, explicitly or implicitly, in any decision related to undergraduate or graduate student admissions or financial support, with due exceptions for institutions that are solely or primarily comprised of students of a specific sex or religious denomination."
"Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas," the 10-page document continues.
In an apparent response to campus protests against US complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the compact adds:
Universities shall be responsible for ensuring that they do not knowingly: (1) permit actions by the university, university employees, university students, or individuals external to the university community to delay or disrupt class instruction or disrupt libraries or other traditional study locations; (2) allow demonstrators to heckle or accost individual students or groups of students; or (3) allow obstruction of access to parts of campus based on students’ race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Signatories commit to using lawful force if necessary to prevent these violations and to swift, serious, and consistent sanctions for those who commit them.
The compact also requires strict definitions of gender, including for sports, as well as limits on the enrollment of international students. Transgender athletes and foreign scholars have been key targets of the Trump administration.
While Kevin P. Eltife, chair of the University of Texas Board of Regents, told the Times that the school system "is honored" that its flagship in Austin was "selected by the Trump administration for potential funding advantages" and "we enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately," the other eight schools declined to comment.
The president has already used federal funding to push for changes at major institutions, waging battles over admission policies, trans athletes, and campus protests against US government support for Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip. Brown and UPenn are two of the schools that have already reached agreements with the administration, while others have fought back.
Critics were swift to condemn the Trump administration's effort as "blackmail," "extortion," and a "shakedown."
"This administration is extorting universities to sign away academic freedom—nothing meritocratic or 'small government' about it," said Salomé Viljoen, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, on social media.
The compact was decried as a "loyalty oath" and "political bribe." Damon Kiesow, the Knight chair for journalism innovation at the Missouri School of Journalism, said that "it is a document of unconditional surrender."
Edward Swaine, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, warned that "this steps boldly toward a scheme in which the federal government's role in relation to all colleges and universities, public and private, is akin to how state governments presently govern state institutions."
"Federalism aside, at what point does every school become a state actor?" he asked.
Despite Republican officials' long-standing opposition to student debt relief and tuition-free higher education, the compact also calls for a five-year tuition freeze and free tuition for students studying "hard sciences" if a school's endowment exceeds $2 million per undergraduate student.
Richard W. Painter, the chief White House ethics counsel under former President George W. Bush and now a University of Minnesota law professor, said Thursday that "the Trump administration is absolutely right that universities must freeze tuition."
"Price gouging of students and wasteful spending must stop," he added. "The administration's obsession over 'definition of gender' is a silly sideshow undermining higher ed reform."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Expelling Brilliance: Trump’s Assault on International Students Imperils America
America will not be great again by closing its doors. It will flourish through welcoming the world’s best minds and taking pride in that.
Aug 18, 2025
Once, the United States truly was the land of opportunity, a place where young scholars arrived with suitcases full of hope, chasing the white picket fence version of the American Dream: studying in leafy college towns, dreaming of raising families under skies of limitless possibility.
But in early June 2025, US President Donald Trump delivered a shattering blow to that promise. With two sweeping proclamations, one banning all new visas for Harvard bound international students and the other reimposing travel restrictions on 19 countries, many of them Muslim majority, the Trump administration effectively expelled the very brilliance that makes America great.
These orders not only redirect visas, but they also overturn a national identity built on access, freedom, and merit. The administration justifies the actions under the guise of protecting against foreign influence, radicalism, and even campus antisemitism. But in truth, this is a punitive escalation, a direct response to elite universities like Harvard and Columbia resisting federal overreach in governance.
It sends a chilling message: that merit and dreams matter less than nationality or ideology. That the invitation once extended to the world’s best and brightest is now conditional. This is not a means to protect national infrastructure; it is a means to coerce institutional compliance with injustice.
We must fight for a country where politics do not gate opportunity and where the world’s brightest minds are not exiled but embraced.
International students earned nearly half of all STEM PhDs in the US in recent years and contributed nearly $44 billion to the US economy in 2023–24 alone. Breaking this pipeline will hollow out AI labs, biotech firms, and university research hubs.
Experts warn of a looming brain drain that will hand leadership in critical fields to other nations. This represents an ideological turn in presidential power, unchecked and unprecedented.
The Trump administration has already suspended Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program status; frozen billions in research funding; and implemented intrusive social media vetting for visa applicants.
Thousands of international students, many of whom simply expressed political views or joined peaceful protests, have seen their legal status revoked. Rather than investing in long-term domestic talent pipelines, the Trump administration is deliberately dismantling the systems that anchor America’s intellectual and innovation ecosystems.
The shrinking H‑1B visa access, reduced Optional Practical Training (OPT) retention, and ideological bans reflect a shortsighted, transactional worldview. And economic theory makes one thing clear: These restrictive moves will not fix the trade deficit—they will erode America’s competitive edge.
So what must be done?
Lawmakers and universities must ground policy in principle and pragmatism. They must codify protections that prohibit ideological or religious discrimination in visa decisions, ensuring no future administration can replicate Proclamation 10949. Visa policy should be amended to retain international STEM graduates, scaling OPT, and opening clear talent pipelines to citizenship.
Academic autonomy must be protected by rejecting funding threats tied to political compliance and affirming universities’ independence.
America’s strength has always come from being a place where merit and motivation, not birthplace or belief, determine opportunity. Expelling brilliance to score political points may win applause from a few, but globally, it signals surrender. America will not be great again by closing its doors. It will flourish through welcoming the world’s best minds and taking pride in that.
When brilliance, innovation, and the freedom to think, speak, and believe are driven out, we must be wary and active citizens; we cannot stay silent. We must fight for a country where politics do not gate opportunity and where the world’s brightest minds are not exiled but embraced. The future of America depends on it.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Colleges Could Lose Up to 150K International Students This Year Amid Trump Crackdown
"The immediate economic losses projected here are just the tip of the iceberg," explained the CEO of the NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
Aug 05, 2025
The number of international students enrolling at U.S. colleges looks set to plummet this fall, according scenario modeling by an organization that advocates on behalf of academic exchange worldwide.
Insider Higher Ed reported on Tuesday that new data from the group, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, has found that American colleges could lose up to 150,000 international students in the coming academic year, which would represent a decline of up to 40% in foreign enrollment. In fact, the projected drop in international students is so large that it could lead to a drop in overall enrollment of 15%.
NAFSA cited multiple factors leading to the projected decline in international students: a three-week period between late May and the middle of June where student visa interviews were suspended all together; limited appointments available for students in countries such as India, China, Nigeria, and Japan; and new visa restrictions on 19 different countries stemming from an executive order U.S. President Donald Trump signed in early June.
NAFSA projected that the consequences of losing 150,000 international students this fall would be grim not just for universities but also the American economy as a whole. In all, the association found that a drop in students of that magnitude "would deprive local economies of $7 billion in spending and more than 60,000 jobs."
Fanta Aw, the executive director of NAFSA, emphasized that the United States would suffer even greater long-term damage from its policies discouraging the enrollment of international students.
"The immediate economic losses projected here are just the tip of the iceberg," Aw explained. "International students drive innovation, advance America's global competitiveness, and create research and academic opportunities in our local colleges that will benefit our country for generations. For the United States to succeed in the global economy, we must keep our doors open to students from around the world."
Trump and his administration have been going to war with the American higher education system by withholding federal research funding from universities unless they agree to a list of demands such as eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and reviewing their policies for accepting international students.
The administration has also cracked down on international students who are already in the U.S. and has detained them and threatened them with deportation for a wide range of purported offenses such as writing student newspaper editorials critical of the Israeli government, entering the country with undeclared frog embryos, and having a single decade-old marijuana possession charge.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular