(Washington, D.C.) – In response to the Trump administration’s new higher education Compact 2.0, Ethan Rome, National Director of the Emergency Campaign to Support Higher Education, released the following statement:
“The Department of Education’s (ED) latest version of its failed ‘higher education compact’ is just as bad as the first. It’s a blatant ploy to compel ‘voluntary’ compliance by colleges and universities with Trump’s ideological edicts to crack down on free speech, dictate what can and can’t be taught, and does nothing to make college more affordable.
“The Trump administration has never been about creating a better higher education system. It’s about putting the nation’s colleges and universities under the president’s thumb. Trump’s plan for higher education is to weaponize federal funding to tell colleges what they can and cannot do based on his political demands, or risk losing federal financial aid. That’s bad for students, bad for all of higher education, and bad for democracy.
“We need to focus on the college affordability crisis that unites us, not the divisive culture wars. The solution to the affordability crisis facing higher education isn’t a forever MAGA culture war that attacks free speech and historically disenfranchised communities. The solution is doubling Pell Grants to meet current college costs, and making college and other post-secondary education debt-free for all.”
BACKGROUND
- Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s insistence on “reform” is a calculated effort to make unprecedented federal political intervention across colleges and universities appear acceptable.
- To advance this agenda, the Department of Education is pressuring university officials to publicly pledge to a series of institutional overhauls before the end of the year.
- The Trump administration’s underlying goals remain entirely unchanged: to impose its ideological agenda on higher education. As demonstrated by racially coded rhetoric concerning “admissions decisions, based on merit” and “prioritizing American students and faculty,” alongside the mischaracterization of peaceful protesters as “unruly and violent.”