The battle lines are clear. President Donald Trump is offering elite universities a chance at billions in federal funding if they sign onto his “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” California Governor Gavin Newsom, never one to miss an opportunity to grandstand, is threatening to strip those same universities of state dollars if they dare take Trump’s deal. What began as a policy memo has now become a national showdown between two men who are clearly playing for much larger stakes.
Trump’s Offer: Money for Reform
The Trump administration circulated its 10-point compact to nine prestigious schools: Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, USC, MIT, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown, and the University of Virginia. The offer is straightforward. Agree to a list of reforms and get preferential treatment in the competition for billions in federal research dollars, student loan programs, and tax exemptions.
The compact demands that universities foster a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” and protect conservative thought from being silenced. It requires schools to freeze tuition for five years, cap international undergraduates at 15 percent, and eliminate the use of race or gender in admissions and hiring. It even asks schools to adopt the Classic Learning Test as an alternative to the SAT or ACT and to abolish any academic department that “punishes or belittles conservative ideas.”
One White House official described the approach bluntly to the Wall Street Journal: “They have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education.” The University of Texas responded with enthusiasm, saying it was “looking forward to working with the administration.” Vanderbilt promised to “carefully review the compact,” while others like Penn and USC have been more cautious.
Newsom’s Threat: Sign and You’re Cut Off
Newsom wasted no time issuing an all-caps warning. “IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, THEY’LL LOSE BILLIONS IN STATE FUNDING — INCLUDING CAL GRANTS — INSTANTLY. CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM.”
The governor described Trump’s compact as “nothing short of a hostile takeover of America’s universities.” In his words, the agreement would “erase diversity, and rip control away from campus leaders to install government-mandated conservative ideology.” Newsom went further, claiming it even dictates how universities spend their private endowments and warned that any institution that resists could face “crushing fines or stripped of federal research funding.”
In short, he has made it clear that California schools must choose: Washington’s federal dollars or Sacramento’s state funding.
Academic Groups Sound the Alarm
The American Association of University Professors was quick to condemn the compact. “Penn must not allow itself to be threatened into ceding its self-determination,” the AAUP-Penn executive committee wrote. They warned that agreeing would “threaten the very mission of the University.”
The American Federation of Teachers and AAUP jointly declared that Trump’s plan amounted to “a loyalty oath,” punishing campuses that protect independence while rewarding those that “toe the party line.”
Tyler Coward, lead counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, voiced concerns that “a government that can reward colleges and universities for speech it favors today can punish them for speech it dislikes tomorrow.”
But not everyone is panicking. Kevin Eltife, chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents, said Trump’s proposal fits well with Texas reforms already underway. “Higher education has been at a crossroads in recent years,” he said, noting the state’s move to ban DEI offices and strengthen oversight by regents.
Trump Versus Newsom: The New Political Theater
This is more than a policy fight. It is a political cage match. Trump is using the power of the federal purse to reward universities that shed progressive orthodoxy. Newsom is swinging back, threatening to bankrupt California schools that dare play along. Both men know exactly what they are doing.
Trump frames himself as the president who will break the chokehold of woke ideology on higher education. Newsom is positioning himself as the lone governor who stood up to Trump and saved academic freedom, at least as he defines it. By turning the issue into Newsom versus Trump, he instantly elevates himself onto the national stage and into the conversation for 2028.
The Real Game
Let us not pretend this is just about tuition freezes or admissions quotas. Trump is fighting for control over the culture of higher education. Newsom is fighting for his place as Trump’s top foil, using California’s massive education budget as his weapon. Both men are staging a long war. Universities, meanwhile, are caught in the middle, calculating which pot of money they can least afford to lose.
At the end of the day, the compact is less about academic reforms and more about political theater. Trump wants to break progressive dominance in academia. Newsom wants to ride the fight straight into the next election cycle. And in this play, every university is just a pawn on the board.
This is a good move on Newsom’s part. There will likely be a broad swath of Democrat candidates in the 2028 election cycle. This pulls him out of that pack and puts him on one-to-one par with Trump.
