corporate capture of universities is in the spotlight after a year in which federal officials tied funding to changes in admissions, hiring, and DEI policies at top schools. Since January of last year, the administration has frozen or withdrawn billions in federal support and launched multiple investigations. The Academic Freedom Index reported a sharp decline in institutional autonomy in the United States over the same period, noting a steeper descent than in Hungary, Turkey, and India.
A new study published in Energy Research & Social Science argues this trend has deep roots. Researchers detail how corporate interests, including major oil companies, have for decades used large donations to influence research priorities and governance, weakening universities’ defenses against political interference.
“Private donors had been practicing a smaller version of the same playbook for years by offering funding in exchange for a say over how university programs are run,” said Noel Healy, a geography and sustainability professor at Salem State University and the paper’s lead author.
This pattern, often described as corporate capture, can sway who is hired, what topics receive funding, and what appears in the classroom. Some experts trace the strategy to a 1971 memo from Lewis F. Powell Jr., written before he joined the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to back scholars, scrutinize textbooks, and press trustees to correct what he called a liberal “imbalance.”
The study highlights the roles of the Olin, Scaife, Koch, and Bradley foundations in steering higher education. Built on fortunes from sectors such as chemical manufacturing and fossil fuels, these foundations also backed The Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 outlines a governing blueprint that would bring universities into closer alignment with conservative priorities.
“You go back and read the Powell memo, you already had the agenda of the Trump administration,” said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Brown University.
Several elite universities, including Columbia, Brown, and Northwestern, have accommodated some federal demands. Climate-focused programs have been particular targets, with officials revoking $4 million in grants to Princeton, partly on grounds that the research contributed to “climate anxiety.”
Corporate capture of universities and fossil fuel ties
Many donors shaping campus agendas are linked to the oil and gas industry. One analysis estimated that Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips, and Koch Industries gave at least $700 million to 27 U.S. universities from 2010 to 2020. BP supported Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative for 25 years before allowing the contract to lapse in 2025. A 2020 email released through a congressional probe showed a BP executive celebrating that the company’s relationship with Princeton was “becoming increasingly synergistic.”
These partnerships can steer research and influence policy debates. A 2022 study found that reports from MIT, Harvard, and Stanford, published while they received oil company funding, leaned more favorably toward natural gas compared with independent work. A 2011 MIT report funded by fossil fuel interests helped popularize the notion of natural gas as a “bridge fuel,” a phrase later echoed by former President Barack Obama. A well-known 2004 paper from Princeton, significantly shaped by BP, pushed carbon capture into global climate policy discussions, though it remains unproven at scale.
Healy noted that corporate capture often looks like a gradual tilt toward market-friendly climate approaches and away from measures that could threaten industry interests. Similar tactics have appeared in other sectors, including pharmaceutical and agricultural companies, with historical precedents dating back more than a century. A congressional investigation in the 1920s documented electric utilities funding academics to rewrite textbooks and craft curricula promoting free-market ideas.
Influence efforts extend into K-12 education as well. In some states, the fossil fuel industry’s classroom presence is so routine that it goes largely unchallenged, with trade groups promoting the idea that everyday school supplies, from backpacks to crayons, rely on petroleum.
With federal dollars being withheld, universities may become even more dependent on private funders. “As budgets have gotten tight historically, that’s been one of the reasons why university administrations have been more willing to make some of these deals with funders that bypass normal academic practices,” said Ryan Wishart, a co-author of the study and a sociology professor at Creighton University.
Many donor arrangements remain shielded from public view. The authors urge Congress to launch a dedicated investigation into fossil fuel influence in higher education and call on schools to disclose contracts and external partnerships. Brulle cautioned that transparency alone has limits, noting that institutions such as the University of Texas are subject to state political dynamics closely tied to the oil industry.
Wishart said a first step is for institutions to stop preemptively complying with anticipated political demands. “I think university leaders need to stop engaging in anticipatory obedience and self-censorship,” he said.
Some researchers argue that alternative models of decision-making, including Indigenous governance, could offer more resilient approaches to managing climate and resource conflicts than systems heavily shaped by corporate interests.
