Trump’s Higher Education Power Play, and What it Could Mean for Davidson

A new federal initiative expands intervention into higher education, and small colleges like Davidson may not stay untouched for long.

On October 2nd, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a letter to nine universities across the country, from Brown University to the University of Arizona. The letter proposed a new partnership between higher education, called the “Compact for Academic Excellence.” The selected institutions have until November 21 to accept. Those that do would become eligible for additional federal government grants to put towards research, infrastructure, and expansion.

The compact could be read as a cooperative plan to improve accountability and affordability in higher education. However, critics view it as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to increase federal influence over public and private universities and potentially liberal arts colleges like Davidson.

If these universities choose to accept the compact, they would be required to follow an extensive list of federal guidelines. These range from mandating standardized tests for all applicants to banning the use of race, gender, or sexual orientation in admissions decisions or campus life.

The compact’s own wording reinforces that impression: “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than [the compact], if the institution elects to forego federal benefits.” Even with freedom-oriented language, the text of the agreement reads as an ultimatum, reflecting the Trump administration’s “with us or against us” approach to centers of higher education in his second term.

What remains unclear is what specific “federal benefits” the administration is offering to those who sign, or what exactly colleges would lose by refusing. Many universities will likely weigh the political and reputational costs of compliance as heavily as the financial ones. Signing could risk alienating students, faculty, alumni, and donors who disapprove of the Trump administration’s actions.

Some provisions, such as freezing tuition rates for five years and making first-semester tuition refundable, will likely appeal to students struggling with the rising cost of attending college. Others, such as capping international enrollment at 15% of the student body and requiring faculty and administrators to “abstain from actions or speech relating to societal and political events,” are likely to spark greater controversy.

The mixed response reflects this tension and extends the debate beyond college campuses. According to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, 49% of registered voters believe that President Trump has “gone too far” in “pressuring colleges and universities to adopt new policies”. Yet, this issue also drew the highest percentage of respondents who say he has “not gone far enough”.

So far, only one institution, the University of Texas at Austin, has publicly supported the compact and announced plans to sign. The remaining eight have responded cautiously, saying only that they are reviewing the terms.

It’s not entirely clear why these particular universities were chosen. They include a mix of public and private schools with few obvious similarities, suggesting the administration may be testing this model on a small group before expanding it to others.

Davidson College has already felt the effects of the administration’s broader higher-education agenda. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July, the endowment tax on colleges like Davidson will increase from 1.4% to 7% starting in 2026, a change that President Doug Hicks projects will cost the college millions of dollars more per year. President Hicks told the Raleigh News & Observer in May that such a hike would “create serious pressure on our financial aid budget and our ability to be need-blind, to meet 100% of demonstrated need for all students, and to do so without loans.”

However, Davidson ultimately avoided the increase thanks to a late-stage provision exempting institutions with fewer than 3,000 students. That enrollment-based carve-out shielded small liberal-arts institutions like Davidson from the new tax, even as larger peers such as Duke, Harvard, and Princeton remain subject to it.

For now, Davidson has not been invited to join the “Compact for Academic Excellence,” nor has it faced any federal pressure to alter its admissions policies or curriculum. But given the college’s Presbyterian designation, it remains possible that future federal initiatives, particularly tied to the administration’s recent efforts to promote religious tradition in America, could place expectations and requirements on faith-affiliated institutions like Davidson.

North Carolina’s status as a perennial swing state and its role as a political battleground in recent elections could also bring increased attention, and possibly more scrutiny, to Davidson as the state’s leading liberal arts college.

Following the August light-rail stabbing in Charlotte, the Department of Justice has singled out the Charlotte metro area as evidence of what it calls “weak-on-crime” urban policies. That heightened federal focus on Mecklenburg County could easily extend northward to Davidson, especially as the college gains visibility after being ranked the best college in the South and the tenth best in the country by The Wall Street Journal. The same distinction that attracts new students and national prestige may also draw sharper federal attention in a politically charged climate.