California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially blown a gasket. The man who never met a press conference he didn’t like is now threatening to nuke billions in state education funding if any California university even thinks about signing on to President Trump’s new higher education plan.
And what’s Trump’s big, scary, democracy-ending idea? That colleges stop bleeding students dry with tuition hikes. That they actually protect free speech on campus. That they stop making everything about race, gender, and pronouns. That they restore standardized tests like the SAT. And that they stop spending endowment dollars like political slush funds.
You know, radical stuff.
The Trump administration rolled out what it calls the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” a ten-page blueprint that looks more like a commonsense course correction than a revolution. Nine elite schools got the memo, including USC — the lone California target. If they sign, they get preferential treatment for massive federal grants, extra overhead payments, and priority in civil rights investigations.
That’s when Newsom went full keyboard warrior.
“IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, THEY’LL LOSE BILLIONS IN STATE FUNDING — INCLUDING CAL GRANTS — INSTANTLY,” he fumed in all caps, as if borrowing Trump’s old Twitter persona. “CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM.”
Gavin Newsom just threatened to withhold “BILLIONS” from California colleges if they sign a document pledging not to raise student tuition.
Tuition has gone up 350 percent at CSU schools and 400 percent at UC schools over the last 25 years. pic.twitter.com/kAw1p6hpMJ
— Rep. Kevin Kiley (@RepKiley) October 2, 2025
Academic freedom. That’s rich. This from the governor who presides over campuses where conservative students get shouted down, professors lose jobs for saying men can’t get pregnant, and “gender-inclusive” bathrooms are treated like sacred shrines.
The numbers at stake are staggering. USC alone pulled in $28.4 million in Cal Grants last year. Statewide, private schools got $227.6 million. And the public giants — UC and CSU systems — cashed in to the tune of $2.2 billion. Newsom is dangling it all over their heads like a ransom note. Sign Trump’s compact, and the money’s gone.
Meanwhile, the pearl-clutching in legacy media is in full swing. Trump’s plan is being described as “politicizing” higher ed, as if the last 20 years of DEI hiring, race-based admissions, and cancel culture weren’t the literal definition of politicized education.
Ted Mitchell of the American Council on Education called the compact a “Faustian bargain.” Larry Summers — yes, Obama’s Treasury Secretary — compared it to “fixing a watch with a hammer.” The irony is that both men ignored the fact the watch has been broken for years, and no one’s been willing to fix it at all.
But the compact doesn’t stop with admissions and tuition. It also goes after one of the Left’s most sacred cows: gender ideology in sports. Trump’s plan would require schools to acknowledge biological sex in athletics and defend fairness in women’s competition. Translation: no more six-foot-tall men crushing women’s volleyball records. That’s where the rubber meets the road with Newsom’s California, where men in skirts competing in girls’ track meets is treated as a civil right.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom Threatens to Withhold Billions from State Colleges Signing Trump ‘Compact’ | Paul Bois, Breitbart News
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to withhold billions in state funds from any college that signs an agreement to support President… pic.twitter.com/7WGz7l8LgC
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) October 3, 2025
The White House didn’t miss a beat. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson took direct aim at Newsom’s meltdown: “Gavin Newscum should worry about the disaster he’s created in his own state.” She pointed out the obvious — that opposing the compact is the same thing as opposing tuition caps and free speech.
So here’s the real question. If Trump’s plan is so outrageous, why is Newsom threatening financial Armageddon just to keep schools in line? Maybe it’s because once California kids get a taste of education without the indoctrination, the whole DEI house of cards comes crashing down.
And judging by Newsom’s all-caps panic, he knows it.
