Compact 2.0 and the McMahon statement: the Secretary of Education issues a call to action

Greetings from early August.  For some this is vacation season, but for me it’s full-tilt work.  I’m pitching a new book, ramping up video and Substack content, setting up speaking gigs and consultations through next spring, and redesigning fall classes, while dealing with a frustrating health issue.

Official portrait via Wikipedia.

I have a series of posts in the pipeline here, but today wanted to write about a current event.  Yesterday the United States Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, sent a public letter (pdf) to the leaders of American colleges and universities, along with governing boards and some associations.  It’s an important development in the Trump administration’s campaign against higher education, so I thought we could examine it and see what it might mean for the academy over the next few years.

To begin with, a quick summary of the letter’s contents: it calls on colleges and universities to commit to reforming themselves along certain lines.  Affordability, return on investment (ROI), intellectual diversity, anti-foreign actors, more focus on merit, an emphasis on America first as an organizing principle – there’s a lot there. All of these topics appear as questions, which I’ll quote and excerpt here:

1. Transparency and Merit in Admissions: How will your institution ensure that admissions criteria are transparent and wholly described to prospective applicants? And how will your institution ensure admissions decisions are based on merit, achievement, and your university’s educational purpose?
2. Free Speech and Open Inquiry: How will your institution protect the free exchange of ideas, wide-ranging debate, and openminded campus discourse? And how will you guarantee that unruly and violent protestors do not harass students or disrupt classes, research, public lectures, and campus operations? 
3. Intellectual Pluralism and Academic Vitality: How will your institution encourage intellectual pluralism in all its academic units? … And how will your institution ensure the research enterprise is dedicated to … serving the American people who fund it?
4. Affordability, Value, and Student Outcomes: How will your institution ensure that families can access affordable, high-return, degrees? And what will your institution do to contain costs, improve pricing transparency, and ensure that every academic program equips students to repay their loans? 
5. Academic Standards and Rigor in the Age of AI: How will your institution incentivize rigor in the age of AI, combat grade inflation, and prioritize excellence in teaching and learning? 
6. Safeguarding Research Integrity from Malign Foreign Influence: How will your institutions protect academic programs from foreign influence, and safeguard the integrity of the research enterprise? 
7. Prioritizing American Interests: How will your institution answer this national call to action? How can your campus and faculty advance American security interests, deliver academic programs that meet urgent workforce needs, and contribute materially to the Nation’s prosperity? [emphases in original]

This might sound abstract or lacking concrete details for the short term, but McMahon clearly laid out one marker.  She “called on every postsecondary institution to publish, by the end of 2026, a clear public statement outlining its commitment to implementing reforms that will help restore public trust in higher education.”

A Bloomberg article adds some important context for this letter’s development. The Department of Education owns it, but some academics participated in its creation.  First, one association helped: “the administration’s latest move was developed in partnership with university leaders, primarily the Association of American Universities, which represents dozens of top research institutions including all eight Ivy League colleges.”  Second, senior leaders at four universities played roles, two presidents and two chancellors:

Those include Andrew Martin at Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Crow at Arizona State University, Doug Girod at the University of Kansas and Ronald Daniels at Johns Hopkins University.

Bloomberg adds: “Girod serves as chair of the AAU’s board, and Daniels is its vice-chair.”  Elsewhere, the American Enterprise Institute’s Jenna Silber Storey wrote that she played a role in its development.

After the letter went out, public reactions have appeared.  Inside Higher Ed interviewed several people, and I’d draw attention to some of their responses.  The American Council on Education’s Ted Mitchell described the letter as “far less belligerent than previous discussions of what higher education ought to be and be doing.” More, he saw the letter as stepping back from strongly asserting federal control over campuses:

I think and I hope that it’s a realization by the administration that universities should not be instruments of the state. I do think that this is a tactical shift. I hope even more it’s a philosophical shift to working together to make institutions as good as they can be.

In contrast, PEN America was strongly critical:

[the letter is] “another blatant attempt by the Trump administration to pressure colleges and universities to abandon principle and hew to the administration’s priorities and ideologies.” The association called on colleges and universities “to stand strong against this latest salvo and for the values of free expression, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy.”

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)’s president Lynn Pasquerella took a different tack, emphasizing that academia is already engaged in some of this work, and that’s not appreciated:

While there is always room for improvement, it is disappointing that these longstanding commitments are framed in a way that calls into question the dedication of institutions and the millions of faculty, staff, and administrators who have devoted themselves to advancing educational opportunity, research, innovation, and the public good.

Along those lines, the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) posted an admirably concise response, saying that we’re already working on this and that campuses need autonomy to do it well:

Many of the priorities outlined in today’s letter from the Secretary of Education reflect shared goals across higher education. How those goals are achieved, however, is the sole purview of governing boards and institutional leaders exercising their fiduciary duties in alignment with their institution’s unique mission. The US system of higher education has been built and strengthened by the principles of board independence, institutional autonomy, and mission-driven leadership. It is vital that we protect these principles to ensure reforms are shaped by fiduciary responsibility and the long-term interest of our institutions and their students, not by political coercion.

The President of the State University of New York (SUNY) system’s University Faculty Senate, Bruce Simon, offered thoughts on Bluesky.  One note which stood out to me: “Compact 2.0 offers an opportunity for colleges and universities to stand up for their founding missions and foundational principles and functions, open up a dialogue with the American people, and offer their own ideas about what restoring trust in higher ed entails.”

I would add a few thoughts. To me, this letter feels like a second take of last year’s compact.  I like Simon’s “Compact 2.0” framing.  1.0 failed to get any traction, so they tried again, this time working with some academic partners and shifting the approach.  It’s important to emphasize the continuity here. (I spoke to last year’s compact in my Trump vs higher ed YouTube series.)

The questions McMahon’s letter raises are an interesting mix. Some are established academic values, like doing good teaching and research, or current academic concerns, such as dealing with AI.  Some reflect public concerns about higher ed, like perceived price and politics. Others are standard conservative goals: job preparation, viewpoint diversity.  The neoliberal framing of education in terms of ROI is one held in many quarters within and without the academy.  Still others are Trump themes: “merit” (which I read as code for “no DEI”), anti-protests (read: Gaza), and the America First anti-foreign argument.

One theme which hasn’t gotten much reaction so far it that last point.  The letter clearly wants an America First academy and opposes some international connections.  There’s this call for the latter, calling for the post-secondary sector to focus on American benefits to the exclusion of others:

University-sponsored research can drive economic growth and deliver medical innovation and technologies with vital military applications. University leaders must ensure that the research enterprise is oriented toward advancing the U.S. national interest—not our adversaries’—by refusing gifts with problematic conditions and ensuring that foreign actors do not unduly influence academic programming, research personnel, researcher assignments, or student admissions. Institutions must also ensure that malign foreign actors do not gain access to sensitive research or technology. How will your school protect academic programs from foreign influence and safeguard the integrity of the research enterprise? [emphases in original]

More direct is this call for renationalizing academic work:

American taxpayers invest hundreds of billions of dollars into higher education every year. American universities must put Americans, and American interests, first. That means prioritizing American students and faculty, orienting the research enterprise to support the country’s economic and security needs, and putting American societal success ahead of global commitments. How will your institution answer this national call to action? How can your campus and faculty advance American security interests, deliver academic programs that meet urgent workforce needs, and contribute materially to the Nation’s prosperity? [emphases in original]

How do international students, staff, and faculty feel when hearing those words?  This proposed shift of the American academy from its generation+ of globalized work to a re-national one might be one of the most important points of the letter.

Further, making the higher ed sector more cognizant of its role in national security is a major shift, to put it mildly.

I mentioned public reactions.  I’ve also received private reactions, which I won’t share directly, but can summarize. Many people fear that this “call to action” is a way to rope institutions into the Trump administration’s plans. Some have criticized the AAU’s collaboration and call for all of higher ed to resist.  Friends who are most strongly opposed to Trump, who view his government as fascistic, and especially strong on the oppositional stance.

So where might this go next?

Over the next five months it will be interesting to see who makes the public statement McMahon calls for.  I expect some very careful language in such announcements, as well as careful strategy.  Some might prepare to appear cooperative in order to improve odds of getting federal funds.  They may try some programmatic moves to make their commitment more evident, such as canceling a race-based scholarship or announcing a national security-themed program.

If McMahon follows up, the department might start targeting campuses with punishments if they haven’t posted one of her statements, as well as publicly rewarding those who do so.  Grant awards and withdrawals, investigations launched or called off are just a few options ahead.

I wonder about reaction against the four contributing universities and also the AAU.   How many faculty, students, and staff at Arizona State University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Kansas, and Washington University in St. Louis will protest their presidents and chancellors for participating in the letter crafting process?  Will fall semester see any subject to no-confidence votes?  I wonder to what extent the letter’s move against international connections will motivate these populations, either international academics or Americans on their behalf.  On the association level, will any other institution publicly criticize, or even withdraw from the AAU?

There’s the possibility of intersections with the November elections just three months away.  Higher education could emerge as a political issue if candidates and the media make it so. Fall semester, starting in just a few weeks, can give ample fodder in the form of posted syllabi, student protests, staff and faculty political statements, classroom recordings, conference presentations, and so on. Perhaps some academic leaders will urge making a McMahon statement to reduce chances of getting attacked.

Incidents may also play a role over the rest of 2026.  Consider another prosecution of a Chinese national for espionage. Trump administration officials might pounce, proclaiming the case evidence of why academia needs to make McMahon statements as soon as possible.  Campus election work, such as voting drives, might give candidates and officials materials to attack with, adding calls to join Compact 2.0. Student (and faculty, and staff) protests may do something similar, letting Republicans draw attention to the secretary’s second point.

It’s important to bear in mind the opposite may occur.  If higher ed largely gives the letter a cold shoulder and the Trump administration gets distracted, as it often does, compact 2.0 could fall away as version 1.0 did.

Are you seeing any reactions at your institution or in your networks?

(thanks to Tom Tobin for links)