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Tao Tan
AEI
The fact is that foundations that have successfully influenced academia have learned to use a set of levers that are precisely calibrated to work effectively within the existing structures of higher education. These levers align with academia’s distinctive norms, work with natural intellectual incentives, and are based in a keen understanding of the organizational psychology within colleges and universities.
What follows is a study of that architecture—a picture of ten of the levers that foundations can use to influence scholarship.
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For the good of the Nation, university leadership must seize this occasion to drive essential reforms—a process some began by adopting positions of institutional neutrality and improving policies related to campus protests. Before the end of 2026, I call on every postsecondary institution to describe to the American public your commitments to rigorous teaching, pathbreaking research, and national service—commitments that make our universities a bedrock institution of the American republic.
Now the administration is back with Compact 2.0, formally titled "A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards." It includes some rhetorical flourishes intended to make it seem less threatening to teaching, learning and research. But make no mistake: It once again asks colleges and universities to align themselves with a far-right agenda at the expense of students’ education and the public’s well-being.
