University of Virginia is the latest school to reject Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Ed,”, joining MIT, Brown, UPenn, and USC. Out of the total 9 schools that received the invitation initially, 5 have now rejected it, while the other 4 are yet to issue a final response:
University of Virginia interim President Paul Mahoney announced Friday that the University has provided comments on the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The compact, which the U.S. Department of Education invited UVA to join earlier this month, offered multiple public and private institutions preferred access to research grants and other benefits if those schools agreed to pursue particular approaches to admissions practices, tuition, foreign enrollment and other issues.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Mahoney identified many areas of agreement between the stated goals of the compact and UVA’s approach to education, research and patient care, but made clear that the University seeks “no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals. The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship.”
While the University does not agree that research funding should be tied to a contractual arrangement as proposed, Mahoney acknowledged the need for continued partnership with the federal government. “Higher education faces significant challenges and has not always lived up to its highest ideals,” he said. “We believe that the best path toward real and durable progress lies in an open and collaborative conversation. We look forward to working together to develop alternative, lasting approaches to improving higher education.”