A wave of elite universities declined the White House’s proposed "Compact for Academic Excellence," signaling broad institutional resistance to the administration’s conditions for prioritized federal research funding. Institutions including MIT, Brown and Penn told federal officials they would not sign, citing threats to academic freedom and merit-based research evaluation. The Education Department’s offer would have tied grants to policies on admissions, speech, and governance; university leaders and faculty governance bodies argued the terms would cede institutional autonomy to political actors. Early rejections suggest the administration’s leverage is limited and that few major research campuses will accept conditional funding that prescribes governance and curricular changes.