How colleges are responding to Trump administration’s ‘call to action’

Two months after the Department of Education called on colleges and universities to publicly state their commitment to principles the Trump administration accuses them of abandoning, a pair of major state university systems have complied, while many more institutions remain wary.Even that limited response is vastly different from the uniform rejection from nine leading universities last year of the administration’s previous initiative, the Compact for Academic Excellence. That effort tied compliance to federal research and grant funding.This time, the U.S. government has not issued an overt threat of consequences. Still, college leaders worry their answers could become grounds for punishment or that not answering could draw its own wrath. They question whether complying risks institutional independence. Complicating the decision: The questions themselves deal with subjects that colleges wrestle with constantly and feel to many like they are already addressing. The National Call to Action issued by Education Secretary Linda McMahon in August asked colleges and universities to respond publicly by the end of the year. The list of questions probes how institutions are handling admissions transparency, the free exchange of ideas, intellectual pluralism, affordability, academic rigor, foreign influence, and the goal of advancing the nation’s interests.The Education Department says that, by publicly answering its questions, colleges will take a step toward regaining the public’s trust amid concerns about affordability and ideological open-mindedness.Colorado College President Manya Whitaker says she initially thought the secretary’s email was spam. Once she realized it was real, she tried to think of it as an opportunity. She shared it with her campus and asked whether and how the college should respond. “Every one of us has amazing answers to all of those questions that are perfectly legal, but the real question is: Should we answer?” Dr. Whitaker asks. “Why would we answer? Do we need to be compelled to answer?”Compact 2.0The Education Department wasn’t successful in forcing colleges and universities to sign its original compact, issued in October 2025. Initially offered only to nine highly selective schools, including Brown University, Dartmouth College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was a binding agreement that tied federal funding and research grants to policy changes.Faculty unions, university leaders, and boards of trustees balked at it, decrying a threat to academic freedom and institutional autonomy.Dr. Whitaker says it feels like there is something at play behind the scenes with the new initiative, and that school leaders don’t want to risk their institutions’ well-being, students, or educational missions.Several university presidents helped the Education Department in drafting what some call the “Compact 2.0,” according to reports.So far, all of Florida’s 40 public higher-education institutions – 28 part of the Florida College System, and 12 with the State University System – have answered. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis posted a picture on X announcing compliance from the public schools. Private schools have been asked to voluntarily adopt and respond to the new standards, and have been warned by state officials that noncompliance could lead to funding cuts or other consequences. Loren Matthew/AP Content Services/The Debt Collective and American Association of University ProfessorsA crowd of demonstrators, made up of advocacy groups, students, alumni, higher-education workers, and student debtors, protests in New York, Nov. 7, 2025. “American higher education was founded to form free citizens capable of self-government and to advance the common good – not to chase fads, inflate credentials, or serve ideological capture,” Florida Education Commissioner Henry Mack said in a statement when the state responded. “Secretary McMahon’s Call to Action is an overdue opportunity for institutions across the country to return to those roots and make those commitments clear and measurable.” The University of North Carolina’s 17-school system also answered, taking it as an opportunity to detail what its schools were already doing.Elsewhere, it has prompted more discussion.“What we’re seeing is [that] we are being put into an antagonistic relationship with our own government around something that we do as a way of civic contribution, something that we have been doing for generations that has been broadly recognized globally as the best in the world,” says Vincent Rougeau, president of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.Dr. Rougeau bemoans the fact that state legislators, such as some in Florida, are putting pressure on schools to answer the government’s questions in a specific way. Iowa state Rep. Taylor Collins, chair of the legislature’s higher education committee, has urged schools in that state to answer the letter.While every college or university has its own mission, they are all essentially doing the things that the questions ask, and having to justify what they do is tiring, Dr. Rougeau argues. Still, even amid the wariness to respond directly, many colleges and universities have in effect acknowledged that they need to repair a trust gap. Scholars at Yale, Cornell, and other universities are among those recommending changes at their own schools and beyond.ResistanceThe Trump administration scored big wins in higher education through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025. It set borrowing caps for education loans for students and families, canceled established loan repayment plans, instituted higher endowment taxes on wealthy private universities, and set up punitive measures for schools if graduates don’t make more money than they would have without a degree under the Do No Harm rule.The Monitor reached out to the Education Department by phone and email and received an unsigned response. The statement did not respond as to whether there would be consequences for schools that didn’t answer the call to action.“As Secretary McMahon stated, the Department is urging universities to restore their foundational commitments to academic excellence, pathbreaking research, and national service,” the statement said. “We are encouraged that prominent institutional leaders have welcomed this call for bold reforms. The changes urged in the letter will go a long way toward restoring public confidence in higher education and strengthening the federal partnership.”Amanda Shanor, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Serena Mayeri, a professor at Penn’s Carey Law School, both of whom teach constitutional law, wrote an essay published in The New York Times in early September saying that Secretary McMahon’s letter was a trap. They warned that colleges’ words could be used against them.Asked what she would recommend college leaders do, Dr. Shanor says, “I would say talk to each other and all of you together, don’t answer or say, ‘This is great, but we already answered this. Look at our websites.’” The reason universities were successful in rejecting last year’s compact was that it was initially only sent out to nine schools, and there was coordinated resistance, Dr. Shanor says. The call to action letter is different because it addresses all institutions, and there are concerns about retaliation for not answering. She says that university presidents’ decisions are tied to academic freedom, scientific research, and constitutional democracy, and adds that they should reject the idea that the federal government gets to decide things that are a part of their independence.“Just like with the compact, if all of them just don’t say yes, everybody’s going to be better off, but what they’re worried about is if most people do and they don’t, then they will get in trouble,” Dr. Shanor says. ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LoginReal news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 to lift the standard of journalism and uplift humanity. We aim to “speak the truth in love.” Our goal is not to tell you what to think, but to give you the essential knowledge and understanding to come to your own intelligent conclusions. 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