St. Augustine’s University, a historically Black college in North Carolina, became the first to express interest in joining President Donald Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. This initiative, which ties preferential federal funding to participation, has faced resistance from Ivy League schools and high-profile state universities. Verjanis Peoples, the interim president, and Sophie Gibson, the chair of the school’s board of trustees, submitted a letter to the Department of Education, expressing support for the program while highlighting potential concerns about its compatibility with HBCUs’ missions, including issues related to race-based admissions and tuition freezes.
The letter emphasized the need for the compact to recognize the unique role of HBCUs in expanding opportunities for Black students and historically marginalized communities. The compact’s current restrictions on the use of race, ethnicity, or other identity-based characteristics in admissions and financial support conflicted with the explicit purpose of HBCUs, as noted in the letter. Additionally, the tuition freeze provision, which prohibits schools from raising tuition for five years, was identified as a potential barrier, given the smaller endowments of HBCUs compared to private and state institutions.
The university also raised concerns about the compact’s prohibition of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and its caps on foreign admissions. These restrictions could challenge the school’s global partnerships with institutions across the African diaspora, a longstanding tradition of HBCUs. Despite these concerns, the university remains eager to participate as a constructive partner and early-engagement institution, requesting a dialogue process that allows HBCUs to contribute expertise and help shape the final framework of the compact.
The Trump administration had solicited feedback from nine schools nationwide, setting a deadline of October 20 for responses. However, no schools ultimately signed the compact, with several prestigious institutions, including MIT, the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, and the University of Virginia, declining to participate. Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin remained noncommittal on the proposal.