Washington, D.C.:
The administration of President Donald Trump has presented a major challenge to academic autonomy in the United States, demanding that colleges sign a 10-point agreement covering everything from foreign enrollment to student and staff ideological values in exchange for preferential access to federal funds.
The memo, sent on Wednesday and shared with Reuters by a White House official, outlines several sweeping terms aimed at realigning universities with the administration’s conservative agenda. Among the core demands are:
- Capping international undergraduate enrollment at 15 percent.
- Banning the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions decisions.
- Implementing a five-year tuition freeze.
- Mandating that all applicants take the SAT or a similar standardized test.
- Quelling grade inflation.
The move comes after Trump previously threatened to cut federal funding to universities over issues like pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, transgender policies, climate initiatives, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, which he claims harbor “anti-American” and anti-conservative values.
Ideological Screening and Foreign Student Limits
A key component of the memo focuses on viewpoint conformity. It urges the adoption of viewpoint diversity in faculty and student bodies, and calls for revising governance structures and “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
Regarding foreign students, the guidance states they must be “supportive of American and Western values” and urges colleges “to screen out students who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values.” Furthermore, universities would be required to share all known information about foreign students, including discipline records, with the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department upon request, raising significant due process and privacy concerns.
The memo specifies the cap on foreign enrollment: “no more than 15pc of a university’s undergraduate student population shall be participants in the Student Visa Exchange Programme, and no more than 5pc shall be from any one country.”
Academic Freedom Concerns and Government Probes
Rights advocates have swiftly raised concerns that these actions infringe upon free speech and academic freedom, viewing the memorandum as an attempt to enforce a political alignment on educational institutions.
Letters soliciting agreement and feedback were sent to prominent universities, including Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, UPenn, MIT, and UVA. Universities that sign the deal stand to gain “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants.”
The Trump administration has already launched probes into multiple colleges, often centered on pro-Palestinian protests. To resolve these probes, both Columbia and Brown universities agreed to certain government demands, with Columbia agreeing to pay over $220 million and Brown agreeing to pay $50 million for local workforce development. The new 10-point framework suggests the administration is moving toward a formalized, conditional structure for federal funding.
