Schools most harmed and those most benefiting once NIH, DHS funding resumes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did this thread turn into one about racism or DEI? Can we get back to the point? Which is that unless the most recent announcement is walked back due to it's ridiculousness, this is going to disastrous for scientific and medical research in our country. US will definitely no longer be a world leader in this area under these conditions. And no, it's not just going to affect the social sciences like some people seem to think. I work in research we are all stunned and find it surreal to see people celebrating Trump's decisions.

My advice is to calm down. There was a lot of bloat and wasteful research that didn't contribute much. People have illustrated examples on this thread. But you'd rather believe in a different narrative so you pretend otherwise. I also cannot jump to automatically defend higher education because I'm not wild on how certain aspects of research was utilized through higher education, to use as a controversial but increasingly likely example, NIH gave grants to various universities who in turn subbed out the grants to a certain research lab in Wuhan, either directly or indirectly via a certain entity called EcoHealth Alliance. This is indisputable and factual. And I don't doubt we will learn a lot more about this as the new administration is determined to turn over all stones and reveal everything.

As it is, we also have a $36 trillion dollar deficit that really is not sustainable either. Cuts will have to be made. Deeply and significantly. I did notice that so far the initial attacks by the new administration is effectively a class warfare against the "educated" classes of America: higher edu, legacy media, Fed agencies. But these entities were not kind to the rest of America either.

This is so on the point. I am a University professor at an A+ research univeristy and deal with both NIH and NSF. Double dipping and very high overhead is the major problem for these funding. Upper management at university keeps on coming after professors and they have to continue going after additional funding. Fat at the higher level within Universities is so bad that these positions need to go.

This is ridiculous -- US does not have a 36T deficit, you mean 32T debt, which is largely owed to us and is about 120% of GDP. Annual deficits are on the order of 1.5T. The Republicans are talking about blowing another 5-11T hole in the debt with their tax plan -- so none of this "cost cutting DOGE stuff" is in the name of fiscal responsibility. The fiction that tax cuts pay for themselves is just that. We can sustain debt loads of 120% GDP for a while, as long as we take sensible measures to both raise taxes and cut spending to reduce annual deficits and stabilize market concerns. Japan has done so in face of an aging population and stagnant growth. The US has a huge trump card -- immigration, which will keep the growth engine going. But the MAGA folks want to cut all that, which will lead us into some dark fiscal waters.

As for this overhead -- call it what it is. Every government contractor asks for overhead, which are capex. SpaceX does too. Some medical schools got a little ahead of their skis but many of the associate vice dean and other admin positions are because of all the compliance regs that NIH/NSF/DARPA/DOE all impose. Also, biomedical research has gotten expensive, while NIH direct costs have remained flat over 20 years. Something has to keep pace with inflation - so the burden gets shifted onto "overhead" which also comprise of core facilities, grant admin and all the ancillary activities that support research.

All of this is bad faith and the memo was clearly written by an ideologue with no knowledge of the research enterprise. A good way to do this would be to have the announcement after some audit and discussion about an optimal level of indirects (note that acutal indirects are 30-35% of the total award, not the 60+% claimed) and introduce it over a 3-5 year period.

This is an informed and sensible take. Thank you for writing this out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did this thread turn into one about racism or DEI? Can we get back to the point? Which is that unless the most recent announcement is walked back due to it's ridiculousness, this is going to disastrous for scientific and medical research in our country. US will definitely no longer be a world leader in this area under these conditions. And no, it's not just going to affect the social sciences like some people seem to think. I work in research we are all stunned and find it surreal to see people celebrating Trump's decisions.

My advice is to calm down. There was a lot of bloat and wasteful research that didn't contribute much. People have illustrated examples on this thread. But you'd rather believe in a different narrative so you pretend otherwise. I also cannot jump to automatically defend higher education because I'm not wild on how certain aspects of research was utilized through higher education, to use as a controversial but increasingly likely example, NIH gave grants to various universities who in turn subbed out the grants to a certain research lab in Wuhan, either directly or indirectly via a certain entity called EcoHealth Alliance. This is indisputable and factual. And I don't doubt we will learn a lot more about this as the new administration is determined to turn over all stones and reveal everything.

As it is, we also have a $36 trillion dollar deficit that really is not sustainable either. Cuts will have to be made. Deeply and significantly. I did notice that so far the initial attacks by the new administration is effectively a class warfare against the "educated" classes of America: higher edu, legacy media, Fed agencies. But these entities were not kind to the rest of America either.

This is so on the point. I am a University professor at an A+ research univeristy and deal with both NIH and NSF. Double dipping and very high overhead is the major problem for these funding. Upper management at university keeps on coming after professors and they have to continue going after additional funding. Fat at the higher level within Universities is so bad that these positions need to go.

This is ridiculous -- US does not have a 36T deficit, you mean 32T debt, which is largely owed to us and is about 120% of GDP. Annual deficits are on the order of 1.5T. The Republicans are talking about blowing another 5-11T hole in the debt with their tax plan -- so none of this "cost cutting DOGE stuff" is in the name of fiscal responsibility. The fiction that tax cuts pay for themselves is just that. We can sustain debt loads of 120% GDP for a while, as long as we take sensible measures to both raise taxes and cut spending to reduce annual deficits and stabilize market concerns. Japan has done so in face of an aging population and stagnant growth. The US has a huge trump card -- immigration, which will keep the growth engine going. But the MAGA folks want to cut all that, which will lead us into some dark fiscal waters.

As for this overhead -- call it what it is. Every government contractor asks for overhead, which are capex. SpaceX does too. Some medical schools got a little ahead of their skis but many of the associate vice dean and other admin positions are because of all the compliance regs that NIH/NSF/DARPA/DOE all impose. Also, biomedical research has gotten expensive, while NIH direct costs have remained flat over 20 years. Something has to keep pace with inflation - so the burden gets shifted onto "overhead" which also comprise of core facilities, grant admin and all the ancillary activities that support research.

All of this is bad faith and the memo was clearly written by an ideologue with no knowledge of the research enterprise. A good way to do this would be to have the announcement after some audit and discussion about an optimal level of indirects (note that acutal indirects are 30-35% of the total award, not the 60+% claimed) and introduce it over a 3-5 year period.

This is an informed and sensible take. Thank you for writing this out.

Another thank you from someone too exhausted and stressed to respond to bs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

How can people seriously judge inflation in his first two weeks to him? That's insane and due to Biden's policy overhang.

Trump got almost all israel hostages to be released where as biden made significantly less progress. Trump also negotiated the ceasefire in Gaza when again Biden did absolutely nothing. I see progress.

Elon is the major area I disagree on from an execution perspective. I'd rather he be deported.

OMG, Trump did the same thing with those hostages that Reagan did with the US Embassy hostages in Iran. How can you be that ill-informed?

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify for the confusion caused by the troll. Every institution receiving NIH funding has a previously negotiated indirect rate, which reflects COL variations and every indirect cost has been documented by the institution. Further, the NIH audits indirect costs.
As a result of this process, schools at best break even with their current indirect rate, or may even lose a little money because the NIH denies certain inputs into their indirect rate
This is not a Hopkins only issue. It’s an every college with NIH funding issue, which locally would include UVA, Georgetown and UMD, among others.

[Anonymous]

Another thanks to the poster who explained overhead/capex sensibly. I agree this is an insane move.

That said, Spouse & I are in research (not NIH), and I believe overhead has gotten bloated. The PIs/profs writing grant proposals often grumble about overhead because we don't see benefits commensurate with the overhead cost. This makes the proposal less competitive against other labs with lower rates. NIH is different than other funders, in that they compete on direct costs, then pay the overhead. NSF has a total budget, and if your institution has higher overhead, you can fund fewer researchers.

While I don't think there is outright fraud, University administration has zero incentive to keep the overhead low - it's the opposite. The higher rate they can negotiate with a funder, the more income the university brings in. People working in the labs scrimp and save to try to make the direct costs low, the university admin doesn't do the same. The overhead doesn't come back to the lab or even the department, all of it goes directly into the campus budget and it is hard at our level to understand where. Our buildings are not well kept, admin services are adequate at best. Lawyers and compliance is part of it. So, 15% starting tomorrow is insane, but some attention to this issues seems good.

I don't understand the conclusion that "research will be cut by X%", though. If you reduce direct costs, then you lose even more of the overhead and more of the "research support" funds. It seems like a death spiral for research. Or, there will be no money for new facilities and maybe some of the support staff have to be let go? I don't think there is a solution that will make 15% work with just some minor drops in research output.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another thanks to the poster who explained overhead/capex sensibly. I agree this is an insane move.

That said, Spouse & I are in research (not NIH), and I believe overhead has gotten bloated. The PIs/profs writing grant proposals often grumble about overhead because we don't see benefits commensurate with the overhead cost. This makes the proposal less competitive against other labs with lower rates. NIH is different than other funders, in that they compete on direct costs, then pay the overhead. NSF has a total budget, and if your institution has higher overhead, you can fund fewer researchers.

While I don't think there is outright fraud, University administration has zero incentive to keep the overhead low - it's the opposite. The higher rate they can negotiate with a funder, the more income the university brings in. People working in the labs scrimp and save to try to make the direct costs low, the university admin doesn't do the same. The overhead doesn't come back to the lab or even the department, all of it goes directly into the campus budget and it is hard at our level to understand where. Our buildings are not well kept, admin services are adequate at best. Lawyers and compliance is part of it. So, 15% starting tomorrow is insane, but some attention to this issues seems good.

I don't understand the conclusion that "research will be cut by X%", though. If you reduce direct costs, then you lose even more of the overhead and more of the "research support" funds. It seems like a death spiral for research. Or, there will be no money for new facilities and maybe some of the support staff have to be let go? I don't think there is a solution that will make 15% work with just some minor drops in research output.

Spouse is also a researcher and in admin, none of the researchers like to believe that the university doesn’t make money on indirect but that is the case. Much of indirect is due to NIH a requirements so if NIH wants to drop some of its requirements, then the universities could eliminate some costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How can people seriously judge inflation in his first two weeks to him? That's insane and due to Biden's policy overhang.

Trump got almost all israel hostages to be released where as biden made significantly less progress. Trump also negotiated the ceasefire in Gaza when again Biden did absolutely nothing. I see progress.

Elon is the major area I disagree on from an execution perspective. I'd rather he be deported.

OMG, Trump did the same thing with those hostages that Reagan did with the US Embassy hostages in Iran. How can you be that ill-informed?

They got returned. what else are you looking for? why did nothing happen until trump took office?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How can people seriously judge inflation in his first two weeks to him? That's insane and due to Biden's policy overhang.

Trump got almost all israel hostages to be released where as biden made significantly less progress. Trump also negotiated the ceasefire in Gaza when again Biden did absolutely nothing. I see progress.

Elon is the major area I disagree on from an execution perspective. I'd rather he be deported.

OMG, Trump did the same thing with those hostages that Reagan did with the US Embassy hostages in Iran. How can you be that ill-informed?

They got returned. what else are you looking for? why did nothing happen until trump took office?

Because Trump illegally met with Netanyahu and told him that he would let him destroy the Palestinians if he held off on a deal. The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was well publicized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How can people seriously judge inflation in his first two weeks to him? That's insane and due to Biden's policy overhang.

Trump got almost all israel hostages to be released where as biden made significantly less progress. Trump also negotiated the ceasefire in Gaza when again Biden did absolutely nothing. I see progress.

Elon is the major area I disagree on from an execution perspective. I'd rather he be deported.

OMG, Trump did the same thing with those hostages that Reagan did with the US Embassy hostages in Iran. How can you be that ill-informed?

They got returned. what else are you looking for? why did nothing happen until trump took office?

Because Trump illegally met with Netanyahu and told him that he would let him destroy the Palestinians if he held off on a deal. The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was well publicized.

This absolutely how he behaves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once NIH and DHS grant funding resumes it's safe to say that social science research will not be funded at the same level as the hard sciences.

So those schools with a STEM focus on research...MIT, CalTech, Harvey Mudd, CMU, Northeastern, Georgia Tech, VaTech should come out better.

There is going to be a lot of pain and budget issues at a variety of the less tech heavy departments.

For example, for NIH funding, some $8.5 billion was used in 2024 to fund Behavioral and Social Science grants. This was about the same as Biotechnology, $8.5 billion.

There is going to be a lot of pain in certain departments.

At the end of the day their will likely be acroos the board cuts. But not that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bump

This thread is going to get list in the colleges area but it is a massive policy shift for biomedical research and health.

How does this benefit MAGA voters or red states? Research is expensive but compared to our national budget it is nothing. Confused, How is science and medical research partisan?

MAGAs must believe they are a superior breed of humans immune from cancer, Alzheimer’s and premier afflictions.

stop lumping all magas together. some like jd vance, elon, rfk even, and trump’s family are fairly well educated. the reality is the democrats gave a piss poor choice. kamala was an abject disaster with an inability to put forth a plan that would solve the inflationary issues or budget deficit . trump was a less bad alternative.

Harris was a way better option than Trump. Misogyny and racism won the day on Nov. 5th.

America will pay the price.

But....the price of eggs!

Yup! The 45% Hispanic population, 39% of Asians and 20% of Blacks who voted for Trump are all racist.

Who better to tell these Hispanics, Asians and Blacks what is good for them and if they are racist or not than a white woman?

MAGA doesn't have a monopoly on ignorance. Some minorities are fools too.

FAFO is coming.

Exactly, white people don’t have a monopoly on voting against their interests. And yeah - Asians can be pretty racist. It was incredibly difficult if not impossible to adopt from China, for example, if you were black (at least 17 years ago).

[Anonymous]

Most of this thread has nothing to do with education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another thanks to the poster who explained overhead/capex sensibly. I agree this is an insane move.

That said, Spouse & I are in research (not NIH), and I believe overhead has gotten bloated. The PIs/profs writing grant proposals often grumble about overhead because we don't see benefits commensurate with the overhead cost. This makes the proposal less competitive against other labs with lower rates. NIH is different than other funders, in that they compete on direct costs, then pay the overhead. NSF has a total budget, and if your institution has higher overhead, you can fund fewer researchers.

While I don't think there is outright fraud, University administration has zero incentive to keep the overhead low - it's the opposite. The higher rate they can negotiate with a funder, the more income the university brings in. People working in the labs scrimp and save to try to make the direct costs low, the university admin doesn't do the same. The overhead doesn't come back to the lab or even the department, all of it goes directly into the campus budget and it is hard at our level to understand where. Our buildings are not well kept, admin services are adequate at best. Lawyers and compliance is part of it. So, 15% starting tomorrow is insane, but some attention to this issues seems good.

I don't understand the conclusion that "research will be cut by X%", though. If you reduce direct costs, then you lose even more of the overhead and more of the "research support" funds. It seems like a death spiral for research. Or, there will be no money for new facilities and maybe some of the support staff have to be let go? I don't think there is a solution that will make 15% work with just some minor drops in research output.

Spouse is also a researcher and in admin, none of the researchers like to believe that the university doesn’t make money on indirect but that is the case. Much of indirect is due to NIH a requirements so if NIH wants to drop some of its requirements, then the universities could eliminate some costs.

Not so much that we think they "make money" on the research, just are skeptical that the money is used as efficiently as it could be, and that it is equitably distributed back to the labs to maintain basic infrastructure (much less improvements). It covers the walls and power and heat/air (that sometimes breaks down), but we pay for intranet/wifi/IT support and even some financial analyst support with direct costs (projects too complex for the basic support/monthly reports offered by overhead). It can also be used to fund "opportunisitic" new ventures. I admit I don't know the deatails and much of it is necessary, but also think that universities currently have an incentive to try to get the maximum IDC rate possible.

But I agree about the red tape/requirements costing a lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of US research funding has been absolute garbage. The STEM research too.

I look at recent research papers at my kids R1 school and 80% of social science papers are DEI garbage. We don’t need more of this junk.

Maybe you simply don't understand the research and are parroting right wing BS?

NP. I can't speak to the funding issue, but a ridiculous amount of social science research is ideologically motivated garbage. It may not be 80%, but whatever fraction it is, it's too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of US research funding has been absolute garbage. The STEM research too.

I look at recent research papers at my kids R1 school and 80% of social science papers are DEI garbage. We don’t need more of this junk.

Maybe you simply don't understand the research and are parroting right wing BS?

NP. I can't speak to the funding issue, but a ridiculous amount of social science research is ideologically motivated garbage. It may not be 80%, but whatever fraction it is, it's too much.

PSA: one good way to identify MAGA trolls is that they refer to medical research as “social science” research.