Universities are in an unstable position where Trump uses research financing as a wedge

The Trump administration takes advantage of the intertwining of university financial affairs and government financing, and seeks to place schools on a short steering wheel linked to its research capabilities.

Colombia has already lost $ 400 million as grants about what the government calls the failure of anti -Semitism. Harvard University is implementing the freezing of employment due to the financial “uncertainty” in federal policy. On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University announced that it was abandoning 2000 workers due to federal aid discounts.

While the Republicans chant these moves and others wonder why these major universities get a lot of financial support in the first place, experts say that scientific research depends largely on federal dollars and their shortage may lead to comprehensive changes in the financing strategy.

It is a long -term relationship. “The federal government is retracting investments in those areas, it will have severe consequences for institutions,” said Liz Clark, Vice -President of Politics and Research at the National Assembly of University Employees and University Employees University.

Most higher education institutions receive federal dollars in the form of help from students and Pell, which President Trump has not yet threatened.

But it is a different story for research institutions, as hundreds of schools receive federal funds for educational, medical, agricultural and other research programs. The National Center for Scientific and Engineering Statistics in 2021 Faculties received about 49 billion dollars in funding for federal research and development.

All these ways are being attacked because the Ministry of Governmental efficiency (DOGE) has taken an ax to various federal agencies and programs.

In the Ministry of Education, the Institute of Education Sciences witnessed hundreds of millions of dollars in research contracts that were canceled.

Perhaps the most dangerous for scientific research, the National Institutes of Health later announced that they will only allow schools to cover 15 percent of administrative expenditures from granting them, while before reaching 69 percent at Harvard University.

The moves became more targeted when the federal government announced that $ 400 million will be taken from Colombia more than a year than Republicans who criticize the university because of its dealings with pro -Palestinian protests.

Then Main University lost about 30 million dollars from the Ministry of Agriculture in the United States after the governor of the state entered into a general dispute with President Trump on the policies of transgender athletes.

While concentrated procedures against Maine and Colombia may face legal challenges, universities may have to deal with the possibility of bowing to the administration’s demands or setting the priorities of research that can be conducted without federal support.

On Friday, the Trump administration has developed multiple changes that Colombia will have to make its policies in order for the talks to start recovering funding, including changes in protest rules and disciplinary procedures and the development of studies departments in the Middle East, South Asia and African under the “academic point” for at least five years.

“Half of these things that you cannot do and the other half is crazy,” said Joseph Holie, a Colombia’s classic professor professor, said. “If the federal government is able to attend and demand the closure of the university administration or restructuring, we will not have universities in this country.”

“There are questions about what is within the current law,” said Clark.

She said: “They are likely to think first about what they should continue, what they want to continue and what they may not have the resources to continue.”

Harvard University has been free of freezing an employment that will remain in place until the end of the school year at least and informed the leadership in various university schools of “scrutinizing appreciation and informal spending, re -evaluating the scope and timing of capital renewal projects, and making a strict review of any new multiple years of years.”

Johns Hopkins University said on Thursday that it launches 2000 workers at the extensive cuts in Dog to the United States Agency for International Development.

Perhaps the discounts began only: The Ministry of Education announced on Friday that investigations in dozens of universities on what they call diversity, shares and inclusion practices. The agency said in the “dear colleague” messages that may not lose funding.

From outside schools, he wonders about the reason, who face these devastating cuts, do not do more to take advantage of their endowments, which elite colleges can collide with billions of dollars. Harvard, the largest in the country, is more than $ 50 billion, larger than the annual budgets of most states.

Endowment is a set of donations for universities that the Foundation invests to support its mission. Money is usually legally obligated to go to certain aspects of the university and cannot be transferred to other regions, often based on donor preferences or other guidelines.

“Endowments consist of thousands of separate money. They do not work like a savings account … where you can go to the bank using your ATM card and your discount card, take money and spend it on what you want. Stephen Bloom, Assistant Vice President of Government Relations in the American Education Council, said it is a set of funds designated for specific purposes, which are legally binding purposes.

Another possible challenge for schools is the timing of Trump discounts: Most colleges have set their budget for a year in advance starting in the summer.

“We are here in the middle of their financial year, and they may lose billions of dollars,” Bloom said, adding that even “institutions with good resources, such as Harvard or [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] And others, they do not have hundreds of millions of dollars they can use to compensate for this deficiency. “