Governor Newsom: No State Funding for Sell-Out Universities

• “If any California university signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding – including Cal Grants – instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.” – Governor Gavin Newsom

By Vanguard Staff

SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom escalated California’s defiance of the Trump administration’s higher education agenda Thursday, warning that any California university that signs the proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” would immediately lose state funding.

 In his statement, Newsom said, “If any California university signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

The compact, sent to nine public and private universities nationwide, including the University of Southern California, ties access to federal funding to sweeping conservative policy conditions. 

According to an Associated Press report, the compact demands that universities adopt government definitions of gender, ban consideration of race or sex in admissions and hiring, freeze tuition for U.S. students, cap international student enrollment, and exert greater control over campus speech and endowments.

USC is the only California institution that received the compact letter. In response, the university said it is “reviewing the administration’s letter.” 

Newsom’s threat places USC and other campuses in the crossfire of competing funding pressures: comply with federal demands or face loss of state backing.

State financial data indicates USC received $28.4 million in Cal Grant funds for fiscal year 2024-25, benefitting 3,198 students, according to the California Student Aid Commission. Across all independent institutions in California, total Cal Grant disbursements reached $227 million in the same period, while public university systems and community colleges collectively received $2.2 billion.

Newsom’s statement follows a pattern of resistance against the Trump administration’s education policy pressure.

In August, he publicly backed the University of California system in response to a proposed $1.2 billion federal fine for UCLA over alleged civil rights violations, calling for legal action and rejecting any capitulation.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson criticized Newsom’s stance in a statement, saying the governor should “worry about the disaster he’s created in his own state” and adding, “By opposing the compact, Newscum is opposing efforts to cap wild tuition hikes and to protect free speech.”

As the showdown intensifies, the compact is being viewed by many observers as a coercive attempt to remake university governance and academic norms. USC deans and faculty have expressed alarm at the proposal’s implications for intellectual autonomy. 

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, added that no self-respecting university should “live down a reputation of selling out their principles of academic freedom and free speech” for federal inducements.

Even staunch advocates of higher education reform have warned against the compact. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called it “a Faustian bargain” that undermines institutional autonomy.

As the November decision deadline approaches, California’s universities face mounting pressure to pick between divergent allegiances to state funding or federal incentives.

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