By Liz Wolfe

Copyright reason

Trump asks colleges to get serious: Yesterday, the White House sent 10-page compacts to nine of colleges and universities—Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University, and the University of Virginia—asking them to assent to certain commitments in order to receive access to a wider array of federal funding.

Called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” most of the asks are eminently reasonable, and would make it so colleges now conform with the law instead of flouting it outright.

“The memo demands that schools ban the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions,” reports The Wall Street Journal. It also calls for schools to “freeze tuition for five years; cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%; require that applicants take the SAT or a similar test; and quell grade inflation.”

But the memo also asks that universities abolish any departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas” and strengthen policies meant to deter such ideological conformity. Of course, “institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits,” reads the document.

“The first round of schools received the compact along with a letter that frames the pledge as an opportunity to proactively partner with the administration and its effort to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system,” per The New York Times. Interestingly, “the demands in the compact also include providing free tuition to students studying math, biology, or other ‘hard sciences’ if endowments exceed $2 million per undergraduate.”

In a sense, this is federal government intrusion into the affairs of universities. Who is a federal bureaucrat to decide how many international students a college ought to admit, when the college should be able to decide what’s in their best interest and what’s not? It’s not like a system of arbitrary nationality limits is especially meritocratic. But the case made by Trump administration officials like May Mailman is that we don’t get to pour tons of American taxpayer dollars into the higher education system and then routinely educate the world’s students; that’s not a good return on investment or aligned with what’s in the nation’s best interest.

The solution Mailman and the Trump administration more broadly offer is, I think, sound: If you’re a university that doesn’t want to sign onto these demands, you may forego federal funding and retain full independence. But if you’d like to dip into federal coffers, you must agree to certain standards and maintain environments that foster more intellectual diversity. We’ll see whether this holds up whenever it’s challenged in court.

Also, I think it’s interesting—and a welcome development—that the administration also snuck in some lines about tuition-freezing. Ballooning cost of attendance has been a huge problem for years, and shedding light on administrative bloat and wasteful spending is surely in the American public’s best interest.

Scenes from New York: Last night, I hosted a book party for Leah Libresco Sargeant at my home in Brooklyn, alongside my dear friend Nicole Ruiz. We had in attendance homemakers, journalists from The Dispatch and The Atlantic, a pastor’s wife and mother of five, and a woman who detransitioned (and wrote about it), among many others. An eclectic bunch for sure.

Leah’s book, The Dignity of Dependence, is premised on two claims: The first, that “women’s equality with men is not premised on our interchangeability with men”; the second, that “dependence on others is not a temporary embarrassment at the beginning (and end) (and much of the middle) of our lives but the pattern for how we live together.” I highly recommend it.

If you enjoy this newsletter, would you do me the extraordinary favor of forwarding it to a friend? (Ideally with accompanying text like “I think you’d enjoy this newsletter that keeps me informed in a crowded and ever-stupider news environment” not “this libertarian chick belongs in the loony bin.”) “They say my generation is wasting our lives watching mindless entertainment,” writes Freya India at Jonathan Haidt’s After Babel. “But I think things are worse than that. We are now turning our lives into mindless entertainment. Not just consuming slop, but becoming it.…Someday this generation, these influencers, will discover with dread what every celebrity and contestant and cast member has realized before them. That after offering everything up, every inch of their lives, every finite moment on this Earth, it does not matter how much they stage, how much they rehearse, how much they trade, how long they leave the cameras rolling, we will always wonder, eventually, what else is on?” “The White House is halting $18 billion in New York infrastructure funding due to concerns over diversity and inclusion practices and as the first day of a federal shutdown grinds government work to a halt,” reports Bloomberg. Honestly, fair. Why should the rest of the country subsidize my state and city? And why should the city let so many residents off scot-free—i.e. rampant fare evaders—instead of choosing to enforce laws and improve the city’s fiscal situation? “The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job for now and announced it will hear a case in January over President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove her,” reports The Washington Post. “The temporary ruling lasts until the justices hear the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to allow Cook to remain on the job. The Trump administration had asked the high court to remove Cook immediately.” Speaking of the Post:

????@PostOpinions editor Adam O’Neal announces new opinion journalists, reporting to @jameshohmann: – @dominicjpino joins from @NRO – @KateAndrs joins from @TheSpectator – @carinemhajjar joins from @GlobeOpinion All three will start next month and regularly appear on our… pic.twitter.com/6n4RYWqScE — Washington Post Communications (@WashPostComms) October 1, 2025

“More than two years into a conservative takeover of New College of Florida, spending has soared and rankings have plummeted, raising questions about the efficacy of the overhaul,” notes Inside Higher Ed. “While state officials, including Republican governor Ron DeSantis, have celebrated the death of what they have described as ‘woke indoctrination’ at the small liberal arts college, student outcomes are trending downward across the board: Both graduation and retention rates have fallen since the takeover in 2023. Those metrics are down even as New College spends more than 10 times per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend, on average. While one estimate last year put the annual cost per student at about $10,000 per member institution, New College is an outlier, with a head count under 900 and a $118.5 million budget, which adds up to roughly $134,000 per student.” Yep:

The zero-interest-rate era is going to become lost history because people want to make up a narrative around AI. The white collar bloodbath didn’t happen because of a chat app release, it happened because of the end of ZIRP which occurred rapidly in 2022. https://t.co/tIV88Myioe pic.twitter.com/fos5fQfidX — Simon Sarris (@simonsarris) October 2, 2025

I mostly agree with Aella, but grad school? Let’s maintain some standards.

Stop infantilizing young women. We should respect their agency, not assume they are incapable of making decisions that require long term sacrifice. Stand up for women’s right to choose motherhood, sex work, or even grad school. https://t.co/nq17TyPGyY — Aella (@Aella_Girl) September 29, 2025