What are Trump’s new rules for universities to qualify for federal funding?

The United States authorities has asked 9 US universities to hold to a fig of demands successful bid to person “preferential access” to national funds.

The Wall Street Journal reported connected Wednesday that the universities had received a memo telling them to chopped overseas enrolment and ace down connected departments that “belittle” blimpish ideas if they are to suffice for funding.

The White House has not publically announced the memo and has not explained wherefore these 9 universities successful peculiar person been singled out.

Here is what we cognize astir the caller requirements for universities seeking national funding.

What does the White House memo to US universities say?

The 10-point memo is titled “A Compact for Academic Excellence successful Higher Education”.

Under the presumption of the statement laid retired successful the memo:

• Universities indispensable guarantee that admissions and fiscal enactment services disregard contention and enactment erstwhile admitting students and hiring unit and faculty.
• They indispensable publically stock anonymised admissions data, including GPA and trial scores, breached down by race, nationalist root and sex.
• All applicants to universities are required to instrumentality a standardised test, specified arsenic the SAT, earlier they tin beryllium admitted.
• International students indispensable not marque up much than 15 percent of undergraduate enrolments.
• Universities indispensable guarantee they stay a “vibrant marketplace of ideas connected campus” with nary ascendant governmental ideology.
• They indispensable abolish departments which “purposefully punish, belittle, and adjacent spark unit against blimpish ideas”.
• Universities are required to frost tuition fees for 5 years, trim administrative costs and publically stock postgraduate net by programme.
• The institutions with endowments exceeding $2m per undergraduate pupil should waive tuition fees for students enrolled successful “hard science” programmes.

Universities which take not to travel these outlined standards whitethorn suffer national benefits, portion those that enactment and comply volition beryllium rewarded.

Which universities person received this memo?

The universities that received announcement of this statement connected Wednesday are:

• University of Arizona
• Brown University
• Dartmouth College
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Southern California
• University of Texas
• University of Virginia
• Vanderbilt University

University of Texas Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Alida Perrine takes portion successful a pro-Palestinian protestation astatine the University of Texas connected May 5, 2024 [Nuri Vallbona/Reuters]

How person these universities responded?

The universities person mostly said they are inactive reviewing the memo.

Local quality outlets successful Arizona reported that University of Arizona spokesperson Mitch Zak said successful a statement: “The assemblage archetypal learned of the compact erstwhile we received it connected Oct. 1. We are reviewing it carefully.”

Kevin P Eltife, the president of the University of Texas Board of Regents, said successful a connection connected Thursday: “The University of Texas strategy is honoured that our flagship – the University of Texas astatine Austin – has been named arsenic 1 of lone 9 institutions successful the US selected by the Trump medication for imaginable backing advantages nether its caller Compact for Academic Excellence successful Higher Education.”

Eltife added that “we enthusiastically look guardant to engaging with assemblage officials and reviewing the compact immediately”.

On Thursday, Brown University announced that it is establishing an advertisement hoc Committee connected Diversity and Inclusion to make the recommendations, arsenic good arsenic a draught enactment program for sustaining and enhancing diverseness and inclusion connected field implicit the adjacent decade.

What are the reactions to this?

On Thursday, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), released a connection rebuking the demands.

“The Trump administration’s connection to springiness preferential attraction to colleges and universities that tribunal authorities favour stinks of favouritism, patronage, and bribery successful speech for allegiance to a partisan ideological agenda,” it said.

The AFT was joined by advocacy radical American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which has been resisting White House interference successful higher acquisition successful the US.

“This seems to beryllium [the administration] moving to a carrot approach, but embedded successful the carrot is the stick,” Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP told Reuters.

Professors astatine the targeted universities person besides expressed concern.

“It seems to person a beauteous wide mentation of what foments governmental unit – acquisition institutions that radicalise students done extremism connected contention and sex are mentioned explicitly,” University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School prof Kermit Roosevelt said successful a connection to the university’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Demonstrators rally successful a protestation organised by the City of Cambridge, calling connected Harvard enactment to defy interference astatine the assemblage by the national authorities successful Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, connected April 12, 2025 [Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters]

Why is the Trump medication doing this now?

The memo marks the Trump administration’s latest determination successful its efforts to displacement the governmental scenery of higher acquisition institutions successful the US.

Shortly aft his inauguration successful January, Trump began cracking down connected US assemblage students who, past year, participated successful protests and encampments against Israel’s warfare connected Gaza.

The medication claimed that these students were spreading anti-Semitism and “pro-Hamas” sentiment connected campus. Trump besides alleged that universities were carrying retired “illegal and immoral discrimination” successful the signifier of diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

On January 29, Trump signed an enforcement bid requiring national agencies to study immoderate actions they instrumentality against anti-Semitism connected field wrong 60 days of an incident.

One time aft this, the White House published a information expanse successful which Trump was quoted arsenic saying: “To each the nonmigratory aliens who joined successful the pro-jihadist protests, we enactment you connected notice: travel 2025, we volition find you, and we volition deport you. I volition besides rapidly cancel the pupil visas of each Hamas sympathisers connected assemblage campuses, which person been infested with radicalism similar ne'er before.”

Since then, several students person been targeted with visa revocations and deportations, including Columbia University postgraduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested and detained successful March. On September 12, a US migration justice ordered that Khalil, who held a Green Card and is joined to a US citizen, beryllium deported to Algeria oregon Syria.

Columbia University was centre-stage during past year’s pro-Palestine encampments connected US campuses, with students taking implicit Hamilton Hall connected campus, renaming it Hind Hall aft six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed alongside her household by Israeli forces successful Gaza successful January 2024.

In February, Trump revoked $400m successful national backing to Columbia, citing “a nonaccomplishment to support Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment”.

In March, the Trump medication sent a missive to Columbia outlining the conditions for negotiations to reconstruct its funding. Within days, Columbia responded, accepting the government’s demands.

Trump besides froze national funding for Harvard University successful April.

On September 30, Trump said that his medication was adjacent to a woody with Harvard aft months of negotiations astir its schoolhouse policies. Without revealing galore details astir the deal, Trump said Harvard volition wage astir $500m for an unspecified purpose.

Now, the assemblage indispensable necessitate that protesters amusement assemblage ID if asked and prohibition look masks which conceal identity, with spiritual and aesculapian exceptions. It has besides hired 36 information officers who are authorised to apprehension students with the enactment of the New York police.

On July 4, the One Big Beautiful Bill – the Trump administration’s taxation and spending measure – was passed, which proposes raising taxes connected elite universities.