Trustees vote to raise tuition, but that seems to go against an agreement the college president is eager to sign.
By Alice Herman/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: December 19, 2025
Host: The New College of Florida trustees voted Wednesday to raise tuition for students. That, in turn, raises questions whether the school would still be qualified to sign the ‘Trump Compact’. Alice Herman with Suncoast Searchlight is trying to find answers.
Alice Herman: The 15 percent price hike applies to out-of-state students and goes into effect in fall 2026. It could complicate the college’s plans to sign Trump’s “compact” on higher education, which requires signatories to freeze tuition for 5 years for American students. It also requires them to implement a range of ideologically driven policies. In exchange, those schools would get priority funding from the federal government.
In response to questions from Suncoast Searchlight, a New College spokesperson said the school remains “first in line” to sign the compact and suggested the outlet ask the White House whether it still qualifies.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
New College of Florida is set to raise out-of-state tuition by 15%. Photo by Emily Le Coz via Suncoast Searchlight
The compact requires signatories to adopt a binary definition of gender and purge “institutional units” that “punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
The Trump administration initially offered the deal on October 1 to nine selective universities. None of them have so far publicly agreed to sign on. Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Universities of Pennsylvania, Southern California, Virginia and Arizona rejected the compact outright.
Numerous universities and university associations, including the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, which represents more than one hundred and fifty mostly evangelical schools, have objected to the compact. On October 17, they signed a statement that called the agreement “nothing less than government control of a university’s basic and necessary freedoms.”
New College, on the other hand, quickly publicized its intent to sign on, standing out among even conservative schools that have rejected the agreement over concerns about academic freedom.
Reporting for Suncoast Searchlight, I’m Alice Herman. Read more at suncoastsearchlight.org/new-college-tuition-hike-trump-compact.
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