In its first nine months, the Trump administration has thoroughly disrupted the American higher education landscape. It has cancelled federal grant funding, pressured university leaders to resign, and circulated a draft compact that ties preferential access to future funding to institutional policy changes. Critics call the administration’s actions overreach or even extortion.Supporters see this as long-overdue accountability.
The controversy has at least exposed a deeper structural truth. The storm now hitting American higher education did not start on January 20, 2025. Its conditions were created almost eight decades ago, when universities began building their budgets around federal aid, federal research, and federal policy. Successive programs, such as the GI Bill, the National Science Foundation, and Title IV aid, all deepened the partnership between the federal government and higher education.
The Trump administration has simply highlighted the reality that even private universities in America are highly dependent on public support. Today, on average 25% of all university revenue either originates in or is facilitated by the federal government.
Many faculty earnestly believe in the inviolably private character of their institutions. Even administrators, often more aware of their institutions’ federal entanglements, may not realize how systemic and universal this interdependence has become: In 2025, nearly all universities depend on public money—which depends on public trust and public confidence.
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Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Zohran Mandani:
“The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable, and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession”
“I think that annoys the —— out of these people”