This model legislation—An Act to Refocus Colleges and Universities on Their Fundamental Academic Mission—offers ways for states to codify the principles of the federal higher education compact, originally proposed by the White House to nine high-profile institutions in late 2025, to improve higher education in America.

The legislation operationalizes the compact’s core principles of merit, nondiscrimination, free inquiry, and accountability for student outcomes.

The legislation also differentiates between public and private institutions to emphasize both state responsibility and academic freedom.

The model ties compliance to meaningful enforcement mechanisms, including conditions on state funding, authorization to operate, civil penalties, and periodic audits. The state’s higher education system or regulator may promulgate rules to further operationalize any provision.

The model is divided into nine main sections that address the following topics:

1. Merit in Admissions. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Use the Classic Learning Test for admissions on equal footing with the SAT and ACT.
• Make colleges responsible for paying off a portion of students’ loan debt when a college knowingly admits a student with a low likelihood of graduation, based on predictive evidence such as high school GPA. Colleges must maintain and use data that predicts such graduation outcomes.
• Prohibit—according to the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions decision—the use of proxies for protected classes (such as race, ethnicity, national origin, or sex) in admissions, outreach, practices, or decisions.

2. Marketplace of Ideas and Civil Discourse

Institutional. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Adopt institutional neutrality principles and language.
• Refrain from taking part in identity-based activities, such as using racial preferences in hiring, admissions, or scholarships, or conducting trainings, programs, or activities with identity preferences.
• Refuse to establish, engage, hire, or maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or personnel.

Viewpoint diversity and free expression. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Commit to a diversity of viewpoints across teaching and research.
• Have no office, position, or system (that is, bias reporting systems) that is used to investigate or punish students for expression protected by law.
• Administer free expression training to all newly enrolled students on their rights under the First Amendment, applicable state constitutional provisions, and the institution’s policies on free expression.
• Treat public areas on campuses as traditional public forums (no designated free-speech zones) and institute only “time, place, and manner of speech” restrictions that meet federal scrutiny standards, meaning that such restrictions must be content-neutral, serve a significant government interest, be narrowly tailored, and leave open ample alternative channels for communication.
• Prohibit security fees based on the content of speech.
• Establish due process protections in disciplinary proceedings involving expressive activity and require sanctions for individuals who materially and substantially interfere with others’ free expression on campus.

Freedom of association. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Prohibit discrimination against a student organization based on viewpoint or mission.
• Ensure equal treatment of religious student organizations.
• Provide flexibility in faculty advisor requirements for student organizations.

General education.

• State authorities may disqualify courses from the general education curriculum of any public institution for any reason including, but not limited to, failure to ensure a diversity of viewpoints.

3. Civil and Constitutional Rights Compliance. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Periodically certify that they are in compliance with all federal, state, and local laws pertaining to civil and constitutional rights in all policies, procedures, scholarships, and activities.
  • If an institution fails to certify or submits false information, the state may impose appropriate sanctions.
  • State authorities may conduct periodic civil rights and compliance audits of public institutions.

4. Student Learning. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Collect, maintain, and annually report to their governing board their grade distribution data for academic courses and programs. Such data are also classified as public record.
• Make course or program grade data available to an enrolled student upon request.
• Maximize transfer credit for military service members and veterans using Joint Service Transcripts.

5. Financial Responsibility and Accountability. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Annually publish on their websites the financial and workforce outcomes of graduates for each academic program (information already reported to the federal College Scorecard).
  • The state higher education regulator shall conduct a comprehensive review of academic programs at all public institutions (evaluating graduate earnings, outcomes, enrollment and completion, and program duplication) every five years.
  • The regulator must set minimum standards for each measure and publish a report identifying programs subject to consolidation, discontinuation, or enrollment limitation.
  • The regulator may also designate a process for accepting and evaluating appeals before final decisions are made.

6. Foreign Entanglements. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Disclose any foreign gift, grant, or contract (with detailed reporting requirements and aggregation rules) valued at $50,000 or more.
• Refuse any agreement with a foreign source in a country of concern (such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria) without approval.
• The state higher education regulator shall:
  • Conduct annual, random audits of at least five percent of the total number of gifts from the previous year to assess compliance.
    • If an institution fails to comply, the state regulator may impose sanctions (such as civil penalties or ineligibility for state funding).

7. Deportable Offenses. Public institutions of higher learning should:

• Annually certify that, upon receipt of official notice from a federal agency that a student’s or employee’s visa, immigration status, or employment authorization has been revoked, terminated, expired, or otherwise rendered invalid under federal law, the institution executes a policy to immediately suspend or terminate the individual’s enrollment or employment.
• Enforce a policy that prohibits all students, faculty members, and staff members from publicly espousing, persuading others to endorse or espouse, related to an ongoing conflict, or to support a terrorist organization as defined in federal law. (Institutions may not independently determine deportability.)

8. Accreditation

• Accrediting agencies and associations may not compel public institutions of higher education to violate state law except where federal law preempts the relevant state requirement.
• Any institution of higher education that is adversely affected by retaliatory or other adverse action by the accreditor may bring legal action and obtain damages or other redress.

9. Immigration Enforcement Cooperation

• Public institutions of higher education that maintain a sworn campus police department or contract out such campus safety responsibilities to a local police department shall enter into and maintain a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• This agreement will delegate to designated campus police officers or those on contract with the university the authority to perform specified federal immigration enforcement functions under ICE’s direction and supervision, consistent with the practices of ICE’s program.
• Each public institution will publicly report annually whether it has a current agreement, which type of program model is being implemented, and the number of campus police or police officers that are on contract with the university, who are authorized to exercise such delegated immigration enforcement authority.

*Limitations: The model legislation clarifies that nothing in this bill authorizes violations of federal law, academic freedom, or constitutionally protected expression.