The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is among nine universities offered preferential access to federal funding by the Trump administration if they sign a “compact” aligning with administrative priorities, according to the Wall Street Journal.
They were chosen because they are seen as “good actors,” according to May Mailman, senior adviser for special projects at the White House.
“They have a president who is a reformer or a board that has really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education,” she told the outlet.
An MIT spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
As part of the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” sent Wednesday evening, institutions would have to: ban race or sex-based hiring and admissions; freeze tuition for five years; cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%; require that applicants take the SAT or a similar test; and reduce grade inflation, according to the outlet.
Students who drop out in their first semester would have their tuition refunded and institutions would have to waive tuition for students looking at “hard science” programs if their endowments are more than $2 million per undergraduate student, according to the outlet.
An independent auditor would also need to be hired in order to determine how the institution is living up to the compact.
The compact also focuses on campus climate, and creating a better environment for conservatives, including ending departments that “purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
If an institution violates these terms, it would have to give back any federal funding that year and private contributions, according to the outlet.
While federal funding won’t be limited to these schools, they would be given an edge to large grant funding, according to the outlet.
The other institutions included Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia.
Brown and the University of Pennsylvania have signed deals with the Trump administration. Notably absent on the list is Columbia, which also penned a deal with the federal government in July.
Also not on the list is Harvard, which President Donald Trump claimed his administration reached a $500 million deal with the university on Tuesday, but quickly reversed course and told reporters that the federal government was “close to finalizing” the agreement.
More Higher Ed
Read the original article on MassLive. Add MassLive as a Preferred Source by clicking here.