An Agenda for America’s Universities to Serve the Public Interest

Auditorium seats

POLICY BRIEF

An Agenda for America’s Universities to Serve the Public Interest

Ideas for bridging the divide between universities and the public, re-envisioning these institutions to better deliver on their promise of economic opportunity and mobility.

Ralph Richard Banks, Emily J. Levine, Hoang Pham, Mitchell L. Stevens, and Dan Sutton

Stanford Center for Racial Justice
Published: May 21, 2025

Download PDF

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The social contract between universities and society has eroded. While schools must defend the independence of their research and teaching, now is the time for the nation’s universities to collaboratively pursue solutions that speak directly to Americans’ concerns that these institutions–and the U.S. economy–are not working for them.

Universities need innovative models that reimagine their relationship with society. Possibilities include creating new versions of high-quality institutions in new regions, reimagining the four-year degree model, integrating workforce development with liberal arts education, leveraging technologies to democratize access, and redefining trustee fiduciary duties to align with public interests.

Lowering costs may entail less competition–for rankings, faculty, and resources–and more collaboration among institutions in order to better serve the nation. Policymakers can help by removing the specter of antitrust violations that discourage some efforts to bend the cost curve to benefit education consumers.

America’s universities present a striking and increasingly troubling paradox. By traditional measures–research output, student selectivity, endowment growth, and global rankings–the top 50-100 institutions in the United States are thriving. Yet these same schools face mounting criticism and eroding public trust, as more Americans conclude the institutions are no longer working for them. President Trump’s extraordinary pressure campaign against some of the nation’s most prestigious universities seizes on a sentiment shared by many: that these institutions primarily serve the interests of an already privileged elite.1

The numbers tell a revealing story: while top universities are as selective as ever and their endowments have grown dramatically, public confidence has plummeted. According to a 2024 Gallup poll, Americans are now almost evenly divided between those expressing high confidence in higher education and those expressing little or none.2  Meanwhile, the cost of attending college has risen 124% over the last 20 years, contributing to $1.6 trillion in outstanding student loan debt and growing skepticism about the value of college, even as economic data shows college degrees offer greater financial returns than ever before.3

The implications extend far beyond campus boundaries. A college degree has emerged as a defining fault line in American life–increasingly determining not just economic prospects, but political affiliations and voting patterns.4  The 2024 presidential election illustrated this “diploma divide,” with exit polls suggesting Trump’s victory was powered by overwhelming support from voters without college degrees.5

During his first term, Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress had already demonstrated their willingness to challenge universities’ privileged position, imposing a new tax on wealthier institutions with large endowments.6  On the 2024 campaign trail, he spoke of removing tax advantages and grants from colleges that “attack free speech,” and forcing universities to part with their endowments, projecting that schools “will pay us billions and billions of dollars for the terror they have unleashed into our once-great country.”7  Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, has been even more direct: “The universities are the enemy.”8

The second Trump administration has now moved beyond rhetoric to direct action. It slashed $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University over allegations of antisemitism, while demanding sweeping changes to university discipline and admissions policies.9  But perhaps nowhere is the battle as pitched as at Harvard, where the nation’s oldest higher education institution publicly defied the administration’s demands and quickly sued the government.10  In response, federal officials froze $2.2 billion in grants and the president announced his intention to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status.11

The administration has also attempted to cap overhead reimbursements on National Institutes of Health grants at 15%–a dramatic reduction from rates that previously provided private research powerhouses like Harvard (69%) and Yale (67.5%), and even public research flagships like the University of Michigan (56%), additional funds to cover essential facilities like labs, equipment, and administrative costs that support scientific research.12  This change alone could cost America’s research universities more than $4 billion a year.13  Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation that would raise the tax on university endowments fifteen-fold, from 1.4% to 21%.14

In the face of these unprecedented challenges to their funding, autonomy, and very mission, universities must defend core principles that have made them world-leading–including the independence of their research and curriculum, and their tradition of attracting talented students and faculty from across the globe. But focusing solely on playing defense would mean missing a key window of opportunity. Now is the time to pursue solutions that, in many cases, already receive bipartisan support and speak directly to voters’ concerns that the U.S. economy is not working well for them.

America’s universities have long served society through their dual missions of education and research. The research breakthroughs at these institutions continue to propel the nation forward–enabling the rapid development of mRNA vaccines that combated the COVID-19 pandemic, driving advancements in clean energy and climate resilience, and pioneering AI technologies that are transforming industries and daily life.15  But even as universities achieve these significant advances, a growing distrust in academic work threatens to diminish their impact.16  While restoring trust in university research will require its own thoughtful solutions, this brief focuses primarily on universities’ educational role, where the right reforms can help transform universities and ensure they better deliver on their promise of economic opportunity and mobility.

A recent White Paper from the Stanford Center for Racial Justice (2024) explains how the reciprocal relationship between universities and society has fractured.17  University leaders have themselves begun to emphasize the significance of this partnership and its erosion. Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels described his institution as “deeply tethered to the compact between our sector and the federal government,” while lamenting the challenges to this historic relationship.18  This crisis represents a systemic challenge, yet America’s universities have shown few signs of banding together to reimagine their collective role. The culture of competition between institutions for rankings, faculty, and resources has taken priority over figuring out how the higher education sector can better serve the nation.

This brief presents an affirmative agenda of ambitious proposals that universities could pursue collaboratively to reinvigorate their relationship with American society. These proposals include elevating the role of community colleges as vital feeder institutions, building new versions of our best universities in new places, educating more of America’s veterans and training more of its teachers, embracing workforce development while connecting it to liberal arts education, and, finally, harnessing emerging technologies like AI to democratize access to our best teaching, learning, and research. It is time for university leaders, policymakers, and engaged citizens to unite around a shared vision for rebuilding the relationship between universities and the American people–one that will transform opportunities for many and strengthen higher education’s vital role in shaping our nation’s future.

HOW THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES AND SOCIETY BROKE DOWN 

Our recent White Paper details how, for generations, American universities operated under an implicit agreement: in exchange for public funding, autonomy, and prestige, even nominally private institutions provided many services to society.19 Universities helped settle frontiers, fight world wars, and, through economic and education policies like the GI Bill, grow the middle class. Their research advanced national interests, their teaching developed human capital, and their civic engagement strengthened communities. This reciprocal relationship between universities and society helped drive an unprecedented period of American progress and economic prosperity.

But several forces combined to strain this relationship. As state funding for public higher education declined over the past several decades, the gap widened between public institutions and wealthier private schools that enjoyed greater financial resources and autonomy.20 The rise of institutional rankings transformed how universities viewed themselves and their peers, driving fundamental strategy and budgeting decisions that often prioritized prestige over a broader societal mission.21  At the same time, a handful of private institutions significantly grew their wealth through sophisticated endowment management strategies.­22  From 1980 to 2016, the wealthiest 1 percent of university endowments–including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT–saw their assets grow tenfold, from an average of $2 billion to $20 billion.23

As these institutions prospered, higher education became increasingly unaffordable for many Americans. Over the last 20 years, tuition rose at average annual rates of 6.2 percent at private four-year institutions and 9 percent at public ones.24  Student loan debt ballooned to $1.6 trillion, with the average federal loan balance approaching $40,000.25  When sticker prices continued rising while four-year degree completion rates only inched up, many students and families questioned what they were getting in return for their investment, seeing little clear relationship between cost, quality, and time to degree.

The breakdown of the relationship extends beyond teaching and access to include research, historically a cornerstone of universities’ civic contribution. While America’s leading universities continue to produce critical research in nearly every field, private industry has largely taken the lead in some areas of cutting-edge innovation.26  The AI revolution demonstrates

this shift: corporate labs, with superior computing resources and the ability to offer unmatched compensation, are driving advances and attracting top academic talent.27  This diminished role in addressing society’s pressing challenges, combined with rising costs, mounting student debt, and growing wealth concentration among a few institutions, has led Americans to question whether subsidizing universities through federal grants and billions of dollars in tax breaks remains a fair deal.28

In recent months, university leaders across the country have acknowledged this breakdown of the relationship. Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber spoke about the “threat to this compact between the government and our universities that has produced research that’s made a difference in the life of every American.”29  Similarly, Stanford President Jonathan Levin described the importance of rebuilding and renewing “the contract that we have with the country that’s allowed us to create an environment like this.”30  Levin identifies the longstanding relationship in which “the federal government developed a strategy to ensure the U.S. remained the global leader in innovation by investing federal funds in basic research at universities that, in turn, supported private enterprises.”31

With this growing recognition among university leaders and new leadership in the White House and Congress, an opportunity opens to reassess and strengthen higher education’s role in American society. This moment calls for fresh perspectives and bold initiatives. Too often, promising ideas are dismissed with a simple question: where will the money come from? But the resources exist within the higher education system to drive transformative change. Consider that philanthropic giving to U.S. higher education institutions reached $58 billion in fiscal year 2023 alone, while leading institutions have built massive endowments.32 Moreover, a number of these innovative ideas for expanding access and opportunity are already being implemented by schools with more modest resources. The question is not whether universities can better serve society’s interests, but how they should do so.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES TO SERVE THE PUBLIC INTEREST

In response to growing concerns that American higher education–and particularly the nation’s leading universities–have become disconnected from the broader public interest, we offer a set of recommendations to bridge this divide. To rebuild trust between universities and the American people, we propose forward-thinking strategies that address both student needs and broader societal demands for equality, opportunity, and innovation. Our recommendations seek to modernize the role of universities by focusing on several key priorities: pursuing innovative education models that reorient higher education toward its civic mission, ensuring affordability and creating financial incentives for students committed to serving society, and implementing bold strategies to expand access. These solutions have the potential to reshape the future of higher education and restore its vital role in creating transformational opportunities for many Americans.

Pursue Innovative Models that Redefine Higher Education

To address the increasing demand for more inclusive and flexible higher education, universities must embrace innovative models that fundamentally reimagine their relationship with society and the populations they serve. This requires moving beyond incremental adjustments to existing structures toward pioneering new approaches that align institutional priorities with civic needs. By creating new versions of high-quality institutions in new regions, reimagining the four-year degree model, integrating workforce development with liberal arts education, leveraging emerging technologies to democratize access, redefining trustee fiduciary duties to better align with public interests, and requiring meaningful public service from students, universities can create a more impactful and broadly beneficial system. These innovations offer a renewed vision for higher education that is both adaptive and equitable, ensuring more Americans have the opportunity to succeed.

Build new versions of high-quality universities in new places. University presidents and trustees should build new versions of their institutions beyond their traditional campus walls. These expansions could take the form of new campuses, two-year colleges, or even K-12 academies, and should be guided by each institution’s strengths while complementing–but not competing with–existing local educational efforts.33 NYU, an institution deeply embedded in New York City’s urban fabric, demonstrates this potential with its recently launched campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a region with markedly different geographic and cultural characteristics.34 Butler University (Indianapolis) and Loyola University (Chicago) have taken a different approach, establishing two-year colleges–Founder’s College and Arrupe College, respectively–on their campuses that target historically underrepresented students who graduate with little to no debt.35

Reimagine the four-year degree model and the timing and structure of higher education. Universities should restructure their traditional four-year residential model to create more flexible, lifetime-oriented pathways to higher education that serve learners throughout their lives and careers. In an era of rapidly evolving technology and changing workforce demands, institutions must move beyond limiting educational opportunities primarily to 18-22-year-olds and instead develop approaches that recognize learning as a continuous journey.36 One approach distributes college years over a lifetime, as envisioned by our colleagues at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design in their Open Loop University–a student-led initiative–that replaces four consecutive college years in young adulthood with multiple residencies distributed throughout one’s life.37 Developing more flexible online and hybrid learning options could also provide greater accessibility and adaptability for learners at various life stages. An innovative example of this integration is Minerva University, founded in 2012 in San Francisco. Years before the coronavirus pandemic, Minerva combined classic seminar-style classes with a technology platform and globally mobile classroom, allowing students to learn in flexible ways and diverse settings, a model it has further adapted to partner with more universities.38

Embrace workforce development and transforming universities’ role in career preparation. Universities that have long viewed themselves primarily as institutions of liberal learning should embrace workforce development as central to their educational mission, not peripheral to it. Policymakers should view these institutions as vital components of America’s workforce pipeline, working together with community colleges and technical programs to create diverse pathways to economic opportunity. By integrating workforce preparation with their traditional strengths in developing critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills, institutions can better demonstrate their value to society while readying graduates for rapidly evolving careers. Promising initiatives are already emerging across the sector, like a partnership formed by Trinity College, the liberal arts school in Hartford, Connecticut, with Infosys where students work at the global technology company in 8-to-10 week project-based experiences.39 More critically, universities should cede some of their grip over the nation’s employment credentialing process in the interest of lowering barriers separating talented people from well-compensated and career-laddered jobs. The research and advocacy non-profit Opportunity@Work has amply documented how more than 70 million working Americans are categorically disadvantaged in labor markets that explicitly and legally discriminate against jobseekers who do not have four-year college degrees.40

Use emerging digital education technology to democratize access to high-value teaching, learning, and research. Leveraging emerging digital education technologies can democratize access to high-value teaching, learning, and research, extending educational opportunities beyond traditional campuses. Universities must embrace technological innovations to expand their reach, particularly for under-resourced students in K-12 and higher education across the U.S. One promising initiative is the National Education Equity Lab, which partners with institutions like Stanford, Howard, Brown, and Cornell to offer hybrid digital and in-person dual enrollment programs for students in Title I high schools, enabling them to earn college credit.41 Additionally, pre-collegiate academies utilizing technology and hybrid learning models can scale access to elite courses, significantly impacting students’ career trajectories even if they do not attend the host institution. AI also plays a critical role in this transformation, offering tools like adaptive learning platforms that personalize content in real time based on individual student progress. These innovations can also enhance university-sponsored tutoring and mentorship programs, providing virtual advising and matching students with experts. While there are risks associated with AI, universities can mitigate these with clear guidelines and policies around its use.

Redefine trustee fiduciary duties to better align university interests with public interests. State and federal policymakers should update the fiduciary duties of university trustees to explicitly permit and encourage consideration of broader public interests alongside institutional ones. The current paradigm often obligates trustees to prioritize narrow institutional interests over society’s needs, leading to a misalignment between universities’ civic missions and their governance structures.42 While recent politically motivated interventions by some public university trustees highlight the risks of altering governance models, the insulation of private institutions from such pressures suggests that a balanced approach is possible. And there is legal precedent for expanding fiduciary duties beyond immediate stakeholders. Benefit Corporation directors must consider societal and environmental impacts alongside shareholder interests; pension fund managers now incorporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions; and state ‘constituency’ statutes like Pennsylvania’s permit corporate directors to consider the interests of broader society alongside those of traditional stakeholders.43

Require public service in exchange for high-value diplomas and their benefits. Selective universities should require meaningful public service from their students as part of the undergraduate experience–a modest expectation given the exceptional economic value of the degrees they award.44 This requirement could be implemented through various approaches, including extending college programs from four years to five, with graduates dedicating a year to serving and learning in communities across the nation. At a time when these institutions increasingly funnel graduates directly into high-paying jobs in America’s most profitable industries like technology and finance, requiring public service would elevate civic engagement from a peripheral activity to a core element of university operations, better aligning institutional priorities with their civic mission.45 While many universities already have robust public service programs that partner with local nonprofits and government agencies, Tulane University has demonstrated one approach for making service learning central to the undergraduate experience by requiring all students to complete two semesters through approved programs, including service learning courses, academic service learning internships, and faculty-sponsored public service research projects.46

Ensure Affordability and Create Financial Incentives for Public Service Professions

To ensure higher education remains accessible for all students, addressing affordability is crucial, particularly amid rising costs. Lowering costs requires a fundamental shift from competition to collaboration among universities, enabling institutions to achieve economies of scale, reduce tuition, and expand financial aid. Creating stronger financial incentives for public service professions can also help make education more affordable while fostering a workforce dedicated to the public good.

Bend the cost curve through collaboration, not competition. Universities should work together systematically to control costs, moving beyond the competition that drives spending even higher across higher education. While the wealthiest universities have found a temporary solution–using massive endowments to fund financial aid as costs rise–this approach is unsustainable for most institutions whose aid resources cannot keep pace with escalating costs, ultimately making higher education unaffordable for many Americans. Such efforts will require difficult tradeoffs: faculty may need to embrace technology and accept less control over administration, students may see changes in course availability and facilities, and trustees will need to prioritize cost control over competitive advantages in amenities and programs.47 Regulators and policymakers can help by removing the specter of antitrust violations that discourage some efforts to lower costs in a way that benefits America’s education consumers.48 And, successful examples of cost-saving cooperation already exist: more than a decade ago Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts collaborated to build the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, providing shared computing resources to researchers across all five institutions.49 Babson, the Olin College of Engineering, and Wellesley, formed a partnership that facilitates research and teaching projects across campuses and, in California’s Claremont Colleges consortium, the Keck Science Department has served as the integrated science department for three colleges–Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps.50   This type of collaboration–not competition–should become the norm in areas ranging from research facilities and libraries to administrative services and student support.

Create financial incentives for students to enter public service professions. Universities should create financial incentives for students to enter public service professions, particularly by lowering student debt burdens. Research has shown that graduates with student loan debt are less likely to pursue lower-paid public interest jobs, like those in education.51 To incentivize more students to choose public interest work, universities can implement targeted programs that alleviate student debt for those entering public service. For example, the National Science Foundation Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship provides funding to prospective STEM teachers who commit to teaching in high-need schools for at least two years.52 According to a 2007 survey, 56% of scholarship recipients indicated the funding was a key factor in their decision to pursue teacher certification–with greater amounts of tuition coverage having greater influence on their decision to teach.53 What if a student’s debt was fully forgiven after five years of qualifying service in a public interest profession? Could this significantly increase the number who enter public service? By exploring these types of initiatives, universities can both support their graduates’ financial well-being and strengthen critical sectors that advance the public good, reinforcing their commitment to societal impact.54

Implement Bold Strategies to Expand Access to Higher Education

One of the most critical steps in rebuilding the relationship between higher education and the public lies in deliberately expanding access, ensuring that a diverse range of students can benefit from the economic opportunities universities provide. This expansion can take many forms: creating seamless pathways for community college students to transfer to four-year universities, opening selective institutions to more low-income students, and expanding veteran enrollment.55 While expanding access seems like an obvious solution, we emphasize that significant change requires more than tinkering with how a limited number of seats in an incoming class are allocated among demographic groups.

Make community college transfers standard practice and scale up transfer student enrollment across universities. Universities should strengthen transfer pathways from America’s two-year community colleges and significantly increase the number of transfer students to four-year institutions, including the most selective schools. Where policies and regulations impede credit transfer, muddle articulation between two- and four-year colleges, and complicate financial aid, federal and state policymakers should streamline processes and remove these barriers. By educating students who begin their studies in community colleges, universities can better deliver on their promise of economic opportunity and mobility, reach and enroll populations they often miss, and serve the nation’s economic interests.56 The University of California and California State University campuses have been implementing this approach for years, with positive results on measures of intergenerational social mobility and at no evident loss to academic excellence.57 Additionally, institutions like Southern New Hampshire University have established robust credit-transfer agreements with community colleges across the U.S., demonstrating the nationwide feasibility of such partnerships.58

Open selective institutions to many more low-income students. Selective universities should make bold financial commitments and admissions reforms that transform the number of low-income students they enroll. These commitments should include dramatically increasing Pell Grant recipient enrollment, making admissions at more schools fully need-blind, and expanding need-based rather than merit aid. This shift would position selective institutions to better fulfill their role as engines of social mobility and ensure their considerable resources serve broader segments of society.59 The California State University system offers an example for private institutions of what ambitious goals for enrolling low-income students look like–half of all CSU undergraduates receive Pell Grants.60

Expand veteran enrollment through transformed admissions, support, and partnerships. Universities should transform their approach to enrolling and supporting student veterans, moving beyond isolated programs to make veterans a core part of their undergraduate communities. Where admissions processes and university policies create barriers–from credit transfer restrictions to inflexible housing options–colleges should revise practices to better accommodate veterans’ needs and experiences.61 Policymakers can accelerate progress by expanding data collection requirements and providing targeted funding for institutions to build comprehensive veteran support programs.62 These changes would enable selective institutions to tap into an important source of diversity and talent while providing veterans greater access to high-graduation-rate colleges where they can succeed and serve society. Brown University demonstrates this potential through an initiative that doubled undergraduate veteran enrollment while permanently funding full scholarships and extending need-blind admissions to veterans. Public institutions like Texas A&M offer private universities another model for supporting veterans–from pre-enrollment counseling to continued engagement after matriculation–that has enabled the successful enrollment of hundreds of student veterans annually.63

CONCLUSION

Rebuilding the relationship between America’s universities and society may seem like a daunting challenge, one requiring radical transformation of centuries-old institutions. But the reality is that bold yet achievable solutions–built on the foundational principle that universities should serve the public interest–could restore trust and create a higher education system that truly expands opportunity for many.

It stands to reason that institutions benefiting from substantial public support should demonstrate clear societal impact. Furthermore, it’s reasonable to expect that universities with billion-dollar endowments should educate more students from modest backgrounds, and that our most selective institutions should create new pathways for community college transfers. The time has come for universities to envision new campuses and programs in new communities, and to harness emerging technologies in ways that democratize access to our best teaching and research. Finally, the idea that institutions which have historically led scientific advancement should recommit themselves to solving society’s most pressing challenges is simply a return to their core mission.

University leaders and policymakers have the opportunity to forge a path forward where higher education once again serves as a powerful force for economic mobility and social progress. Where institutional wealth and excellence expand opportunity rather than reinforce privilege. And where the strengths of America’s world-class universities are more directly in the service of the nation.

 

REFERENCES

  1. Daniel Markovits, The Meritocracy Trap: How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite (London: Penguin Press, 2020); Michael Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2020).

  2. Jeffrey M. Jones, “U.S. Confidence in Higher Education Now Closely Divided,” Gallup (July 8, 2024); Gallup found that public confidence in many other American institutions has also declined significantly, including the military, judiciary, and national government. For example, in 2023, only 42 percent of Americans were confident in the judicial system, compared to 61 percent in 2017 and 59 percent in 2020.

  3. Melanie Hanson, “Average Cost of College by Year,” Education Data Initiative, last updated Jan. 9, 2022; Melanie Hanson, “Student Loan Debt Statistics,” Education Data Initiative, last updated July 15, 2024. (According to the source, “The outstanding federal loan balance is $1.620 trillion and accounts for 91.2% of all student loan debt.”); David Burk and Jeffrey Perry, “The Volume and Repayment of Federal Student Loans: 1995 to 2017,” Congressional Budget Office, (Nov. 2020); Marisol Cuellar Mejia, Cesar Alesi Perez, Vicki Hsieh, and Hans Johnson, “Is College Worth It?,” Public Policy Institute of California (Mar. 2023) (“In 1990, a worker with a bachelor’s degree earned 39 percent more than one whose highest level of education was a high school diploma. By 2021, the difference had grown to 62 percent (and closer to 90% for workers with graduate degrees)”).

  4. Michael Hout, “Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology 38, (Aug. 2012): 379-400; Ilana M. Horowitz and Mitchell L. Stevens, “Reimagining Education for a New Map of Life,” Stanford Center on Longevity, last modified Nov. 16, 2021; Joshua N. Zingher, “TRENDS: Diploma divide: Educational attainment and the realignment of the American electorate,” Political Research Quarterly 75, no. 2 (Apr. 2022): 263-277.

  5. NBC News, “Exit Polls,” accessed December 6, 2024; William A. Galston, “Donald Trump and the College Degree,” The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 12, 2024).

  6. Tax Policy Center, “What is the tax treatment of college and university endowments?” accessed Dec. 6, 2024.

  7. Donald J. Trump, Campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire (Dec. 16, 2023), accessed on C-SPAN.

  8. J.D. Vance, “The Universities are the Enemy,” keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference (Nov. 2, 2021).

  9. Katherine Rosman, “Trump Demands Major Changes in Columbia Discipline and Admissions Rules,” The New York Times (Mar. 13, 2025).

  10. See Vimal Patel, “Trump Administration Will Freeze $2 Billion After Harvard Refuses Demands,” The New York Times (Apr. 14, 2025).

  11. Id.;  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!”(May 2, 2025, 4:25 AM)

  12. Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, “Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates,” (Feb. 7, 2025); Dhruv T. Patel and Grace E. Yoon, “Harvard Submits Declaration Alongside Lawsuit by 13 Colleges Over NIH Order, Calls Funding Caps ‘Disastrous,’” Harvard Crimson (Feb. 11, 2025); Michael Crair, “New indirect costs rates,” Yale University (Sept. 6, 2024); Dan Jordan, “Update: NIH rate change blocked by federal judge,” University of Michigan (Feb. 10, 2025).

  13. National Institutes of Health (@NIH), X (Feb. 7, 2025, 3:19 PM).

  14. H.R. 446, 119th Cong. (2025).

  15. The American Council on Education similarly emphasizes that ‘higher education builds America’ through economic contributions and community service, citing examples such as disaster relief efforts, Nobel Prize-winning medical research, and community mental health initiatives. See Ted Mitchell, “Dear President-elect Trump: Higher Education Builds America,” (Jan. 6, 2025); In response to the Trump administration’s actions, Harvard created a new website featuring a section detailing the university’s societal contributions that are “at risk” including the “world’s most cutting-edge” research on: cancer, heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and infectious diseases. Harvard University, “Upholding Our Values, Defending Our University,” (accessed May 2, 2025).

  16. See R. Michael Alvarez, Ramit Debnath, and Daniel Ebanks, “Why don’t Americans trust university researchers and why it matters for climate change,” PLOS Climate (Sept. 2023); C. Ross Hatton, Colleen L. Barry, Adam S. Levine, Emma E. McGinty, and Hahrie Han, “American Trust in Science & Institutions in the Time of COVID-19,” Daedalus (2022) 151 (4): 83–97; Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, “From Anti-Government to Anti-Science: Why Conservatives Have Turned Against Science,” Daedalus (2022) 151 (4): 98–123.

  17. Ralph Richard Banks, Emily J. Levine, Emily Olick Llano, Hoang Pham, Mitchell L. Stevens, and Dan Sutton, “Private Universities in the Public Interest,” Stanford Center for Racial Justice (Nov. 1, 2024).

  18. Ron Daniels, “Our bond at a moment of change,” Office of the President (Mar. 4, 2025).

  19. See Emily J. Levine and Mitchell L. Stevens, “Negotiating the Academic Social Contract,” Change 54, no. 1 (Jan. 2022): 2-7.

  20. Charlie Eaton, Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022), 104; Charlie Eaton, The Ivory Tower Tax Haven: The state, financialization, and the growth of wealth college endowments (Berkeley: Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, 2017).

  21. Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder, Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation, and Accountability (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2016); Stanford sociologist Patricia Gumport has identified this shift as the entrenchment of an ‘industry logic’ in university administration at the expense of what she calls a ‘social institution logic.’ This distinction parallels the tension between private interests and civic purposes examined in our White Paper. See Patricia J. Gumport, Academic Faultlines: The Rise of Industry Logic in Public Higher Education (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).

  22. See David F. Swenson, Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment (Los Angeles: The Free Press, 2009); “David Swenson’s Coda,” Yale News (Oct. 22, 2021).

  23. Charlie Eaton, “Elite private universities got much wealthier while most schools fell behind. My research found out why,” The Washington Post (Nov. 4, 2021).

  24. Melanie Hanson, “Average Cost of College by Year,” Education Data Initiative, last updated Jan. 9, 2022.

  25. Melanie Hanson, “Student Loan Debt Statistics,” Education Data Initiative, last updated July 15, 2024. (According to the source, “The outstanding federal loan balance is $1.620 trillion and accounts for 91.2% of all student loan debt.”); For information on debt by institutional type, see Lyss Welding, “Average Student Loan Debt: 2024 Statistics,” Best Colleges, last updated May 30, 2024; Tressie McMillan Cottom’s research shows how for-profit institutions have contributed to both the expansion of student debt and the growing disconnect between education costs and outcomes, particularly for first-generation and low-income student populations, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, The New Press (2018).

  26. See Nur Ahmed et al., “The growing influence of industry in AI research,” Science 379, 884-886 (2023);  Isabelle Bousquette, “Universities Don’t Want AI Research to Leave Them Behind,” The Wall Street Journal (July 12, 2024); see also Jason Owen-Smith, Research Universities and the Public Good: Discovery for an Uncertain Future (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

  27. Naomi Nix, Cat Zakrzewski, and Gerrit De Vynck, “Silicon Valley is pricing academics out of AI research,” The Washington Post (March 10, 2024); Alex Kantrowitz, “Universities Are Woefully Under-Resourced For AI Research. They’re Fighting to Change That.” Big Technology (Nov. 22, 2024).

  28. Nick Anderson of the American Council on Education, emphasizes that higher education must evolve: ‘colleges and universities have a lot of work to do to improve. The higher education of the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s is not necessarily the thing that’s going to be needed in the 21st century.’ See Weissman, ‘ACE Tells Presidential Candidates, “Higher Education Builds America,”’ Inside Higher Ed (2024).

  29. Rachel Abrams and Christopher Eisgruber, The Daily: “The University President Willing to Fight Trump,” The New York Times (Apr. 9, 2025).

  30. Alex Kekauoha, “University leaders welcome families to campus,” Stanford Report (Feb. 23, 2025).

  31. Id.

  32. CASE, “Giving to U.S. College and Universities at $58 Billion in Fiscal Year 2023,” accessed on Dec. 14, 2024.

  33. The Carnegie Classifications’ 2025 update illustrates the growing diversity of institutional missions, introducing a new ‘Research Colleges and Universities’ designation that recognizes research happening at institutions that don’t offer many doctoral degrees. This change acknowledges that valuable academic contributions occur across a wider spectrum of institutions than previously recognized. See ‘Carnegie Classifications Release 2025 Research Activity Designations, Debut Updated Methodology,’ (Feb. 13, 2025).

  34. “NYU Tulsa,” New York University accessed Dec. 6, 2024; See Samuel J. Abrams, “NYU in Oklahoma? What a Great Idea,” American Enterprise Institute (Feb. 22, 2024).

  35. “Why Founder’s College,” Founder’s College at Butler University, accessed Dec. 6, 2024; “Why Arrupe,” Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago, accessed Dec. 6, 2024.

  36. See Mitchell L. Stevens, “College for Grown-ups,” The New York Times (Dec. 11, 2014); Russlynn Ali draws parallels between Charles Eliot’s 150-year-old educational reforms and today’s need to reimagine education for contemporary challenges, noting that “as our world changes, so must our schools,” “The New ‘New Education,’” The Atlantic (Feb.18, 2019).

  37. “Open Loop University,” Stanford 2025, accessed Aug. 7, 2024; “Uncharted Territory: A Guide to Reimagining Higher Education,” accessed Aug. 7, 2024.

  38. Teri A. Cannon and Stephen Michael Kosslyn, “Minerva: The Intentional University,” Daedalus 153, no. 2 (May 2024): 275-285; Emily J. Levine and Matthew Rascoff, “Academic Innovation: The Obligation to Evolve,” Education Next (Jan. 17, 2019).

  39. “Trinity-Infosys Partnership,” Trinity College, accessed Dec. 6, 2024.

  40. Jonathan Rabinovitz, “Playbook boosts community college efforts to help students get data analyst jobs,” Stanford Digital Education (June 19, 2024); Sagar Goel, “Competence over Credentials: The Rise of Skills-Based Hiring,” Boston Consulting Group (Dec. 11, 2023); “Opportunity@Work: Addressing the opportunity gap and improving workforce equity outcomes,” McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility (Aug. 1, 2024).

  41. Sunny Hong, “Leveraging Digital Innovation in College Admissions and Dual Enrollment,” Ithaka S&R (July 9, 2024).

  42. Brian Rosenberg argues that university boards are often ‘bloated and ineffectual,’ noting that many boards of elite institutions have 40+ members, far exceeding the optimal size for effective decision-making. This structure creates challenges for strategic governance and reform. See “Higher Ed’s Governance Problem,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec. 12, 2024).

  43. See Janine S. Hiller, “The Benefit Corporation and Corporate Social Responsibility,” Journal of Business Ethics (2013); Robert G. Eccles, Mirtha D. Kastrapeli, and Stephanie J. Potter, “How to Integrate ESG into Investment Decision-Making: Results of a Global Survey of Institutional Investors,” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance (Feb. 2018); Stephen M. Bainbridge, “Interpreting Nonshareholder Constituency Statues,” Pepperdine Law Review 19, no. 3 (1992): 971-1026.

  44. See Rajiv Vinnakota, “Universities must renew their commitment to democracy,” The Fulcrum (May 30, 2024) (advocating for American higher education to prepare students to be ‘productively engaged, going beyond voting to community involvement and collaboration across difference’).

  45. For a discussion on how civic education requires intentional development of students’ ‘civic identity’ through both core commitments and building blocks, see Thomas Schnaubelt, Sandra Bass, Luke Terra, and Kristina Lobo, “Introduction to Special Volume on Civic Identity,” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (2023).

  46. “Public Service Requirement,” Tulane University Center for Public Service, accessed Sept. 22, 2024.

  47. See Drew Faust, “The Political Economy of Cost Control on a University Campus,” Clark Lecture at the University of California at Berkely (Apr. 20, 2017).

  48. See Jennifer Zimbroff, Sankar Suryanarayan, and Thane D. Scott, “Antitrust Issues Affecting Colleges and Universities,” National Association of College and University Attorneys (Feb. 11, 2015); In Section 568 of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, Congress included a provision designed to permit collaboration between institutions on the use of “common principles of analysis for determining the [financial] need” of students. A pending class action lawsuit argues the financial aid activities of many elite universities exceeded the scope of this exemption, and the exemption itself sunset on Sept. 30, 2022.

  49. “About the MGHPCC,” Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, accessed Dec. 6, 2024.

  50. See “Babson-Olin-Wellesley Collaboration,” Babson Olin Wellesley Three College Collaboration accessed Dec. 13, 2024; “About,” W.M. Keck Science Department accessed Dec. 13, 2024.

  51. See Jesse Rothstein and Cecilia Rouse, “Constrained after college: Student loans and early-career occupational choices,” Journal of Public Economics (Feb. 2011).

  52. “Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program,” National Science Foundation accessed Dec. 6, 2024.

  53. Anne Podolsky and Tara Kini, “How Effective Are Loan Forgiveness and Service Scholarship for Recruiting Teachers?” Learning Policy Institute (Apr. 2016).

  54. Despite multiple steps by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to reform federal student loan programs. including Executive Order 14235 changing certain eligibility criteria for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF) and a plan approved by the House Education and Workforce Committee that would make sweeping changes to federal student loans and financial aid, the core structure of PSLF remains largely intact since it was signed into law in 2007 by President George W. Bush, demonstrating its political resilience. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board recently criticized Republicans’ approach, arguing that “Congress would do better to eliminate all income-based repayment plans and the special loan forgiveness program for government and nonprofit workers,” The Editorial Board, “The End of the Free College Lunch,” The Wall Street Journal (May 2, 2025).

  55. Student access and outcome measurements–and their potential impact on public confidence in America’s colleges and universities–should not be overlooked. The Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education recently announced a new approach that compares postsecondary institutions based on how effectively they provide access to students in their communities and how successfully those students go on to wealth-generating careers in the regions where they live and work. See Ted Mitchell and Timothy Knowles, “Renewing the Social Contract for Higher Education,” Higher Education Today (Apr. 28, 2025).

  56. See Bryan J. Cook, “How to Achieve Diverse Access to College in a Post-Affirmative Action World,” Urban Institute at 7-8 (Sept. 27, 2023).

  57. Raj Chetty et al., “Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility across Colleges in the United States,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 3 (Aug. 2020): 1567-1633. See also David Leonhardt, “America’s Great Working Class Colleges,” The New York Times (Jan. 18, 2017).

  58. Lindsay McKenzie, “SNHU Moves into Pennsylvania,” Inside Higher Ed (Jan. 9, 2020).

  59. See Jeff Strohl, Emma Nyhof, and Catherine Morris, “Progress Interrupted: Evaluating a Decade of Demographic Change at Selective and Open-Access Institutions Prior to the End of Race-Conscious Affirmative Action,” Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (2023).

  60. Alex Beall, “Funding Your CSU Education,” California State University (Oct. 16, 2023).

  61. Daniel Braun, Michael Fried, Emily Schwartz, “Prospective Student Veterans Face Complex Choices on the Journey to a Bachelor’s Degree,” Ithaka S+R (Oct. 31, 2024); Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), “CAEL Forms National Community of Practice Dedicated to Supporting Veteran Learners, Workers, and Their Families,” (Nov. 11, 2024), This initiative by CAEL, part of Strada Collaborative, demonstrates the growing national recognition of the need for coordinated efforts to support military-connected learners through education-to-employment pathways.

  62. See Sindy Lopez, Emily Schwartz, Elizabeth Davidson Pisacreta, “Making the Case for Student Veterans,” Ithaka S+R (Oct. 28, 2020);

  63. Emily Schwartz, “Best Practices at the Institutional Level,” Ithaka S+R (Oct. 17, 2023).