He wields the pen, the funds and the brain. I thought they could have done more with the lyrics.

Like, it should have been another 40,000 every day, another 40,000 every day.

Welcome to the Cato podcast. I'm Ryan Bourne, Cato's R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public

Understanding of Economics. Alongside my regular co-host, Cato's senior VP for Policy and Perennial Optimist, Gene Healy.

Good to be here. And today we're joined by two colleagues. First up, Neil McCluskey, Cato's

Education Guy, or to put it more formally, Cato's Director for the Center of Educational Freedom.

Thanks. Thanks for having me. And last but not least, we have a returning guest and Cato's

Director of Tax Policy Studies, Adam Michelle. Excite to be back. So later in the show, we'll

explore whether we are any closer to a government reopening here in Washington and what impact

a range of mooted budget decisions or risks might have on the deficit and the size of government.

But first this week, universities

are the latest institutions exposed to the Trump administration's attempted dealmaking.

The White House rolled out a compact for academic excellence in higher education last week,

offering nine schools, including Vanderbilt, MIT, Penn and others, front-of-line access to federal grants and the prospect

of fatter overhead payments, but only if they agree to overhaul how they operate. The government's

asks include ending all identity-based admissions on hiring, mandatory standardized test scores,

five-year tuition freezes with outright exemptions for STEM students,

caps on international students, institutional neutrality on politics, tougher rules on disruptive

protests, and end-to-grade inflation and more hard data on their graduates' earnings. Now,

technically, this offer is voluntary, and on some of these things, the policies might even be

desirable for the individual

universities. But this degree of meddling sets a very worrying precedent. And in this case,

...