An Associated Press (AP) news release was published by Long Island’s Newsday newspaper on October 3, 2025. The headline read “Trump offers deal to 9 universities”. The AP summarizes the “deal” to be asking nine American Universities “to commit to President Donald Trump’s political priorities in exchange for more favorable access to federal money”. The AP reports that the commitments sought are in regard to “admissions, women’s sports, free speech, student discipline and college affordability, among other topics”.
The proposed document is called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” (Compact). In regard to the admissions process, race and gender should no longer be considered. All applicants would be required to take the SAT or ACT. No more than 15% of the undergraduate student body can consist of international students and no more than 5% can be from a single foreign country.
The University of Pennsylvania is one of the schools being solicited. The others are Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Southern Cal, M.I.T., Texas, Arizona, Brown, and Virginia. There was no explanation provided as to how these schools were chosen. It is assumed that each of these schools is at some stage of reviewing the document.
The New York Times newspaper print edition of October 18, 2025, reported that M.I.T. was the first to reject the proposal. Next was Brown. Then Penn and Southern Cal rejected the Compact on the same day. Shortly thereafter, Virginia became the 5th school to reject the Compact.