Columbia University’s settlement with the Trump administration is making waves across higher education as the White House indicates it wants the agreement to be a roadmap for other colleges.
Advocates are angry at Columbia’s cooperation while President Trump’s supporters cheer what they consider much needed reforms after the school agreed to pay a $220 million fine and change multiple policies in exchange for all federal investigations into it to be dropped and a restoration of funding.
Among other agreed-to reforms, the Manhattan Ivy League institution said it would end programs that “promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotes, diversity targets or similar efforts” and report foreign students who are expelled to the federal government.
Both Columbia and the Trump administration framed the deal as a win, with the university insisting it kept its academic independence in the process.
But others in the higher education sphere label it a “watershed” moment, especially as Columbia agreed to have an independent monitor determine if it is staying in compliance with the deal.
“The Columbia settlement is a disaster for higher education. I think it’s fair to say that never in the history of this country has the federal government had more control over an independent institution of higher education than this agreement creates. It’s a disaster. It’s an act of cowardice by the leadership of Columbia and bullying and weaponization of antisemitism for nefarious purposes by the Trump administration,” said Todd Wolfson, national president of American Association of University Professors.
Columbia decided not to fight back when the Trump administration came after the institution and took away over $400 million in funding, instead negotiating for months and refusing to take the federal government to court, even after a judge said the university would have standing to do so.
The spotlight on Columbia came after its students led the charge in pro-Palestinian encampments that swept the country in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. Republicans including several key Trump allies chastised Columbia for a poor response to the destruction on campus.
Columbia sought to change that reputation as it went through multiple presidents since the encampments and has cracked down harder on unsanctioned protests, expelling 70 students who engaged in a pro-Palestinian protest in Butler Library during finals this May.
While the deal says Columbia admits to no wrongdoing and drops all current federal investigations, it does not prohibit future inquiries from the Trump administration.
“One of the major concerns is that while there’s an agreement that’s been signed that the attacks on Columbia and other institutions of higher education won’t stop there, because there’ll always be some other issue that they’re out of compliance with, and in the effort to promote a specific ideological agenda, we will all be losers,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
But the larger, more immediate concern is how this will affect other higher education institutions as the Trump administration has already signaled it expects other schools to follow suit.
The administration has opened investigations into dozens of other colleges and took away funding from big names including Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The University of Virginia saw its president resign after behind-the-scenes pressure from Trump’s team. And other schools such as the University of Michigan have shut down their diversity, equity and inclusion offices before any actions could be taken against them.
“The decision certainly marks a watershed moment for American higher education that represents the upending of a decades-long partnership between the government and higher education in which colleges and universities nevertheless retained academic freedom, institutional autonomy and shared governance that have been deemed essential to the public purposes of higher education,” Pasquerella said.
Trump wrote after the Columbia announcement that movement against other universities that “have wrongly spent federal money” are “upcoming,” and Education Secretary Linda McMahon told NewsNation, the sister network of The Hill, she wants the Columbia agreement to be a blueprint for other schools.
“It was a comprehensive agreement that we were able to reach with Columbia, and it is our hope that this is going to be a template for other universities around the country,” McMahon said.
The deal notably gives other institution an insight into what the Trump administration may desire if they are the next target.
While some objectives may be out of reach at other universities, such as the record-breaking $220 million payout, college leaders could decide to take other measures to avoid the administration’s wrath.
“I could see several institutions looking through this and saying, ‘OK, these are the types of policies that the administration wants colleges to engage in. Let’s do a review and see if we’re going to proactively change how we are handling admissions or faculty and staff hiring or reviews of certain programs, these are the buckets that they know are going to be under scrutiny,’” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Columbia’s deal will also put more pressure on Harvard, which has taken the opposite approach and filed two separate lawsuits against Trump’s punitive actions, one on its own funding freeze and another over its ability to enroll international students.
Harvard is now seen as the last defense for those who believe higher education should fight Trump’s crackdown on universities.
While many have been encouraged by Harvard’s public rebuttals, others lack confidence the nation’s oldest and richest university will stay in the fight.
“I know that Harvard is in advanced negotiations with the Trump administration, and I’m among those fearful that they won’t hold the line, but my message to Harvard is that they must hold the line. This is about more than Columbia and Harvard. It’s about the future of higher education. And frankly, as higher ed goes so goes democracy,” Wolfson said.
