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

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok. College grant writer here. Every institution that applies for federal funds has three options for budgeting for indirect costs. First, the individual RFP may set a cap on indirect costs. For example, Department of Education often caps indirect costs at 8%. That means most colleges have to absorb the actual indirect cost associated with that grant. Second, many institutions have a federal negotiated indirect cost rate, called a NICRA, which involves an extensive review of the institution prior to award. That rate is assigned by a cognizant agency. When allowed by the funding proposal, the institution can charge this to the grant and subsequently recover these costs. Finally, if the institution doesn’t have a NICRA, then the funder may allow them to charge a diminimus rate, usually 8-10%. Usually colleges will have a mix of grants in their portfolio that vary in recovery of indirect costs, and part of my job as a grant administrator is to make sure that the portfolio is balanced and we aren’t actually loosing money by accepting grant funds. Yes, if you have too many grants with capped indirect costs, we loose $$$. Also, fyi - any institution with over 7.5m in federal funds has to submit to single audits, in addition to their regular audit, to ensure that funds are used appropriately. Maybe their is waste and fraud, but their are many mechanisms of control in place to ensure fiscal compliance.[/quote]

So if you are familiar with the university research environment.... Is there a mechanism for endowment money to be used to replace the loss of this NIH and NSF funding?   Are universities with large endowments going to be able to weather this and continue supporting all of the research going on at their institutions?  Or is this going to significantly shrink scientific research across the board?[/quote]

An endowment's most critical function is to protect itself. For a simple example, if there is an endowment of $100M, and it brings in 10% return per year, the only money that can be spent is $10M - you can't cut into the endowment itself. But if the endowment is managed such that it can bring in 12% a year, you get to spend an additional $2M (total of $12M). Or a donor can contribute $10M to the endowment, making it $110M - so that at 10% return it provides $11M in spendable funds (again, can't touch the $110M, only the gains it produces). [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics