Officials will consult the Board of Trustees and other top advisers on President Donald Trump’s education compact, which ties financial incentives to politically charged campus policy changes, before determining how to engage with the proposal, a University spokesperson confirmed.
University spokesperson Shannon McClendon said Wednesday officials are aware of recent news reports indicating Trump is offering the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to any university and plan to consult with the Board of Trustees, governance partners, faculty experts and legal counsel about the proposal, which would grant institutions like GW priority access to federal funding in exchange for meeting a list of demands. The 10-point compact, which Trump initially offered to nine universities but has since opened up to all higher education institutions, would require GW to change several of its policies, including mandating applicants to submit standardized test scores, adopting institutional neutrality and capping the percentage of international student enrollment.
McClendon declined to comment on whether the Trump administration contacted officials or explicitly offered the University the opportunity to sign the compact.
Trump in a Truth Social post on Sunday said institutions that want to return to the “pursuit of truth and achievement” are invited to enter the compact with the federal government. He said higher education has lost its way, “corrupting” youth and society with “woke, socialist and anti-American ideology.”
“Our Nation’s Great Institutions will once again prioritize Merit and Hard Work before ‘group identity,’ resulting in tremendous new Research and Opportunity to benefit all Americans, and Equality being honored in American Businesses, Courts, and Culture,” Trump’s post reads.
Trump earlier this month offered the compact to a mix of nine elite public and private universities and this week extended the offer to all colleges days after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — one of the original nine colleges — became the first to reject Trump’s proposal on Friday. Brown University is the only other school out of the nine originally offered the deal to formally reject the offer on Wednesday, and the University of Texas at Austin is the only school to so far express interest in signing on.
Trump also sent the compact to Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College and the Universities of Pennsylvania, Southern California, Arizona and Virginia, and requested the nine institutions reply with feedback on the compact’s draft by Oct. 20.
Brown’s President Christina Paxson said in a letter to the Trump administration Wednesday she fears the provision would restrict academic freedom and undermine self-governance. MIT’s President Sally Kornbluth said in an email to Education Secretary Linda McMahon last week the compact would also restrict freedom of expression and the university’s independence.
Some of the nine universities’ leaders said they would seek community input on the compact before making a decision, particularly from their faculty senates, while others have remained silent. Faculty senators at the original nine universities, including UVA, Arizona and Vanderbilt, have weighed in on their colleges’ decision-making and voted against signing on to the proposed agreement.
As of Wednesday, 100 college leaders endorsed the American Association of College and Universities’ statement released two days after the compact was sent to the nine institutions that criticized the proposal, arguing institutions that sign on would be trading academic freedom for federal funding. University President Ellen Granberg has not signed on to the statement as of Wednesday.
The presidents of the American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers said in a statement earlier this month universities “must reject” Trump’s compact, calling it a “loyalty oath” that offers preferential treatment to colleges in exchange for their allegiance to the administration’s ideological agenda.
Trump’s compact includes several provisions that would require GW to change some of its long-standing practices in exchange for a variety of government benefits if officials decide to sign on, which would include GW to begin requiring undergraduate applicants to submit SAT, ACT or CLT scores and publicly report the data for admitted and rejected students.
GW in 2015 shifted to a test-optional policy for standardized admissions tests in order to better attract underrepresented groups of students, like first-generation students and racial minorities. Since the switch 10 years ago, economics experts and officials said the change has led to more diverse applicants and higher graduation rates for low-income students.
Trump’s compact would also require all signatories to maintain institutional neutrality — or abstention from actions or speech about social or political events that don’t have a direct impact on the institution’s mission — that would extend to all university employees. A University spokesperson earlier this month said officials are continuing to review whether GW will adopt institutional neutrality after former Provost Chris Bracey announced the University was engaging in discussions last spring, though interest from both faculty and officials has slowed after his resignation.
The compact also requires schools to have an international undergraduate population of no more than 15 percent, with no more than 5 percent from one particular country. Vice Provost for Enrollment and Student Success Jay Goff said in August undergraduate international student enrollment dropped by 5 percent over the past five academic years — from about 12 percent in 2019-20 to about 7 percent in 2024-25 — and will continue this year due to delays in issuing student visas as a result of Trump’s travel ban.
