President Donald Trump has long criticized the nation’s elite universities, labeling some as anti-American and dismissing campus leaders as “Marxist maniacs and lunatics.” His administration has also withheld billions of dollars in federal research funding to pressure colleges into aligning with his political priorities. These aggressive measures are now complicating the administration’s efforts to implement large-scale changes across higher education. This week, several leading institutions declined to endorse a so-called “compact” that would tie support for Trump’s policies, including a strict definition of gender and caps on international students, to access to federal research funds. The White House initially approached nine top schools, including the Massachusetts Institute of

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