Victories for Higher Education: Raising Academic Standards and Ensuring Admissions Transparency

The Trump Administration is changing the culture in higher education.

Just over a year ago, we saw men claiming victories in women's athletics. Colleges and universities were focused more on diversity, equity, and inclusion than ensuring graduates were prepared for success in life after graduation. Institutions required DEI statements from faculty and held segregated affinity graduation ceremonies for students. Academic standards fell, admissions were skewed to favor race over merit, and students graduated with a massive pile of debt and degrees that led to no job prospects.

Today, institutions of higher education are changing the game because President Trump is bringing back America's Golden Age - shifting the culture and restoring our nation's institutions to greatness.

Raising Academic Standards and Ensuring Admissions Transparency: Institutions are raising the bar - bringing back excellence in higher education and returning to admission based on merit.

• Numerous colleges and universities have reinstated or are reinstating SAT and ACT admissions requirements.

• Brown University, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Dartmouth College, Georgetown University, Harvard University, UPenn, the University of Texas at Austin, and Yale University all reinstated test requirements in the Fall of 2025.

• Cornell University and Stanford University will reinstate test requirements for the Fall of 2026 school year, while Princeton, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Vanderbilt University will reinstate requirements for the Fall of 2027.

• After a Havard report revealed that grade inflation peaked at Harvard with over 60% of undergraduate grades being A's in the 2024-25 academic year, the university proposed limiting the number of A's to 20% of the students enrolled in a class, plus four additional A's, and is devising a system to rank students by their course percentile standing to determine university honors instead of using GPA. This proposal is an effort to reestablish rigor within the classroom at Harvard.

• Dozens of top universities have ended test-optional admissions. Among them are Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, U Penn, Yale, California Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, MIT, Stanford University, UT Austin, UT Knoxville, UW Madison, as well as all public universities in Georgia and Florida. And Auburn University and the University of Alabama (System) will be ending test-optional admissions.

• Of these, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Yale have seen substantial shifts in their admissions for the class of 2029.

Read about more victories for higher education here.