{"id":30,"date":"2026-05-21T17:10:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2026-05-21T17:10:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:10:37","slug":"the-ivies-can-weather-the-trump-administrations-research-cuts-its-the-nations-public-universities-that-have-the-most-to-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"The Ivies can weather the Trump administration\u2019s research cuts \u2013 it\u2019s the nation\u2019s public universities that have the most to\u00a0lose"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Most of the media coverage of the federal government\u2019s recent cuts in federal research money for universities has focused on its effects on a handful of elite Ivy League universities, such as Harvard, Columbia and Cornell. <\/p>\n

Read more Polytechnic universities focus on practical, career\u2011oriented skills, offering an alternative to traditional universities<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you take money away from a Columbia or a Harvard or other institutions, you\u2019ve just taken away funds from the best researchers,\u201d Toby Smith, the senior vice president for government relations at the Association of American Universities, told CNN in April 2025.<\/p>\n

But these schools account for only a small fraction of the nation\u2019s scientific output that federal research money helps generate.<\/p>\n

In my view, too many policy discussions and debates obsess over what happens on the campuses of elite colleges. Meanwhile, public universities quietly power the nation\u2019s research engine.<\/p>\n

The Ivies do play a critical role in advanced research. But the nation\u2019s public universities make up the backbone of U.S. innovation \u2013 research powerhouses such as the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, Georgia Institute of Technology and Stony Brook University, where I teach.<\/p>\n

These places train the overwhelming majority of science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates for the U.S. workforce and run the lion\u2019s share of federally funded science and engineering research.<\/p>\n

Slashing research and development<\/h2>\n

U.S. colleges and universities spend more than US$108.8 billion annually on research and development, of which about 55% \u2013 roughly $60 billion \u2013 comes from federal funding via agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Together, the country\u2019s eight Ivy League schools received approximately $4.6 billion of federal university research and development funding in 2023 \u2013 or 7.8% of all federal research and development funding allocated to academia. <\/p>\n

In 2023, meanwhile, the University of Washington, Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, each received over $1 billion in federal research funds. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s federal research and development funding cuts are largely tied to what are called \u201cindirect costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Direct costs fund researcher salaries and lab supplies. Indirect costs support the infrastructure that makes research possible and compliant with federal guidelines: lighting, heating and cooling for labs; high-speed data networks; security; and administrative staff who handle payroll and ensure adherence to federal safety and ethics standards.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the Trump administration decided to cap indirect costs for grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation at 15% of the total grant. Traditionally, universities have negotiated their own rates based on documented overhead expenses, with many institutions citing indirect cost rates between 50% and 70%. <\/p>\n

Many aspects of the 15% cap have been paused as they\u2019re being challenged in court. Should these cuts go through, it would be incredibly disruptive for universities that have counted on this funding. <\/p>\n

However, outside of the battle over indirect costs, many research projects simply lost funding or experienced major delays. Over the past year, thousands of grants have been frozen, terminated or left unfunded.<\/p>\n

Ivy League institutions are much better equipped to weather the storm.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Forbes reported that the collective endowment of the eight Ivies was approximately $192.6 billion \u2013 led by Harvard\u2019s $53.2 billion and Yale\u2019s $42.3 billion. Supporters of Trump\u2019s funding cuts have argued that this immense, tax-exempt financial arsenal could significantly subsidize their overhead costs, rather than relying on taxpayers to do so. While endowments don\u2019t serve as a blank check, schools can still pull from them in times of need.<\/p>\n

Read more AI could worsen inequalities in schools \u2013 teachers are key to whether it\u00a0will<\/a><\/p>\n

In contrast, public universities are far more dependent on federal funds to sustain labs, staff and graduate programs. In 2021, the entire Texas public university system \u2013 the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, the University of Houston, the University of Texas at Dallas and Texas Tech \u2013 held an endowment of around $40 billion, more than $10 billion less than Harvard\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Public schools are the training ground<\/h2>\n

This isn\u2019t to argue that the Ivies should have their research funding cut, while public universities ought to be spared. It\u2019s to shift the focus of the conversation to who stands to lose the most: the public universities that educate the vast majority of the U.S.\u2019s future scientists and fuel most of the nation\u2019s scientific output.<\/p>\n

The Ivy League\u2019s geographic reach is extremely concentrated, situated across just seven states, all in the Northeast. Public four-year institutions are located in all 50 states and draw from a much more economically and racially diverse population. They award the vast majority of engineering degrees in the U.S., with more than 144,701 given out in 2023, or more than 70% of the nation\u2019s total.<\/p>\n

Purdue University awarded 3,827 engineering degrees that year, with Texas A&M conferring 3,704. By contrast, Cornell University granted just 820 engineering degrees \u2013 the most among the Ivies, but just 25th nationally. <\/p>\n

Elite schools, including the Ivies, have increasingly into finance, law or consulting. Just 2.72% of Yale\u2019s 2024 graduating class was employed as engineers six months after graduation. Meanwhile, public universities serve as the top feeder schools for major defense and aerospace firms.<\/p>\n

Stony Brook University\u2019s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences , making it one of the top producers of engineering talent in New York. The university manages the Department of Energy\u2019s Brookhaven National Laboratory, which uses advanced tools such as particle colliders to make discoveries in physics, energy, materials and biology. It\u2019s one of a handful of universities that directly operate a national lab.<\/p>\n

Collateral damage<\/h2>\n

The Trump administration has argued that federal research funding cuts are necessary because too many dollars have been allocated for social policy goals, whether it\u2019s \u201cenable engineering for social justice\u201d or $600,000 to teach aerospace engineering students \u201ccritical consciousness and sensitivity to injustices within social systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

While federal law bars the Department of Education from influencing curriculum, the National Science Foundation faces no such constraint. Too much funding, it claimed, went to research that strayed from the federal agencies\u2019 core scientific mandates and crowded out the kind of critical research that underpins U.S. innovation.<\/p>\n

While I think fiscal responsibility and mission creep merit attention, cuts that are too dramatic and too indiscriminate risk gutting the high-impact research that is essential to national security and technological leadership, much of which takes place at public institutions. Fields from supercomputing and wireless communications to biothreat countermeasures and health sciences will and have felt the pain of widespread cuts. <\/p>\n

Federal research funding is not merely academic spending. It is an important national investment that directly fuels local and national economic growth. It supports high-wage jobs and \u201cinnovation districts\u201d centered on university and federal laboratories.<\/p>\n

The future of scientific research funding isn\u2019t a debate over how much government help the privileged Ivies ought to receive. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question of whether public universities will be given the resources to nurture the next generation of scientists, drive bold discoveries and keep America at the forefront of scientific innovation for generations to come.<\/p>\n

Read more What AI earbuds can\u2019t replace: The value of learning another\u00a0language<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While headlines focus on Harvard and Columbia, state universities train far more STEM students, power the nation\u2019s research engine and have fewer resources to weather sweeping cuts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[100,95,97,99,96,104,24,102,101,105,98,103,106],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-cornell-university","tag-education","tag-education-funding","tag-education-funding-cuts","tag-engineering","tag-harvard-university","tag-higher-education","tag-ivy-league","tag-public-universities","tag-research-and-development-rd","tag-stem","tag-university-endowments","tag-yale"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Ivies can weather the Trump administration\u2019s research cuts \u2013 it\u2019s the nation\u2019s public universities that have the most to\u00a0lose - 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