The Atlantic has been putting out some great articles. Worth a read. This is a huge shift in the integrity of American higher learning:

For the entire history of this country, the federal government has allowed colleges and universities to grow and flourish according to their own determination of what higher education means. The resulting system is, for all its flaws, the envy of the world. The smartest people on Earth come to America to live, learn, invent, and prosper, because they know our universities are free. The Trump administration is trying to bring that tradition to an end.

The compact is not a statute passed by Congress or a regulation written with public consent. It is only the ideological will of the president, offered with the logic and ethics of a mafia protection racket. Shakedown artists browbeat and threaten so they can take something that doesn’t belong to them. They also do it to establish who has power and who should live in fear. Universities that accept this bargain will be selling their souls for nothing but a promise of safety that will surely be broken in turn.