From academics to admission, Ivy League schools agreed to:
WASHINGTON – Columbia University has just signed a contract with President Donald Trump, who is different from the rest in the history of higher education in America.
The 22-page agreement aimed at dealing with Trump’s accusations that Columbia is violating federal law is swept away. Changes in admissions, academic departments, campus security and employment are all hampered within them.
In return, the deal eases the extraordinary pressures schools have been facing since March. Hundreds of millions of research funds are beginning to flow again. Other federal probes, including those that have jeopardized access to school financial aid, will be stopped.
For the first time, the Accord has set a critical price tag for US universities to ease the Trump administration.
For Columbia, the cost of softening Trump was sudden. University president Clareshipman agreed to pay a $200 million fine for the school to resolve the financial dispute, Additionally, an additional $21 million designated to university employees who said they were facing discrimination or harm amid campus protests related to the Israel-Hamas War.
Some of the transaction details are as follows:
“It was a really, really complicated issue,” Shipman told CNN the morning after the announcement. “I choose to listen again and again and again, arguing that it’s not surrender to try and solve all the problems we had when in crisis.”
His education secretaries, President Trump and Linda McMahon, promoted the agreement, saying it addresses years of conservative frustrations with higher education and provides a blueprint for future deals with campuses that face similar scrutiny.
“Columbia’s reform is the roadmap for an elite university that seeks to regain trust in the American public by updating its commitment to truth, achievements and civil debate,” McMahon said in a statement after the resolution. “I believe they will spill across the higher education sector and will change courses in campus culture for years to come.”
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA Today. You can contact him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @Zachschermele and follow Bluesky at @Zachschermele.bsky.social.
Veronica Bravo is the director of graphic arts at USA Today
