The Trump administration wants federal funds for cancer and Alzheimer’s research to go to finding cures rather than subsidizing campus bureaucracies. In response, college leaders have gone to court to stop the National Institutes of Health from reducing taxpayer subsidies for campus slush funds, with matters in the balance due to a federal injunction.
The Trump administration has directed the NIH to slash the amount it pays to universities for “overhead” expenses. Previously, for every dollar universities received for research, the NIH gave them an additional 39 cents for overhead — now, it can’t be more than 15 cents. This means that out of the $35 billion NIH provides in grants, the amount devoted to overhead for things such as administration and facilities would be cut from $9 billion to $4.6 billion. If the injunction currently halting the NIH plan is lifted, the total amount of research funding will remain unchanged, but $4.4 billion will shift from administrators to researchers.
