While marquee names like Harvard and Columbia dominate headlines in the ongoing, existential fight between the Trump administration and higher education, public universities such as the University of Massachusetts Amherst are bracing for some of the steepest losses.
The administration has already rescinded thousands of grants from universities nationwide, and President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget would further slash funding to schools. If Congress signs off on that plan, campuses like UMass — which are already hurting from terminated grants — could lose more than half their federal research support.
In May, UMass mechanical engineering professor Matthew Lackner got the email no researcher wants: The government canceled his six-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation. His lab was conducting research and training graduate students on renewable energy.
“I was hoping we’d sneak under the radar,” he said. “But given the topic, I wasn’t shocked.”
Lackner’s training program supported 35 graduate students, including Shannon Callaham, who is studying how vulnerable communities adapt to climate change. Beyond feeding her scientific curiosity, the university job helped the mother of two cover a mortgage and bills.
“I was supposed to be paid in May for the summer and I still don’t have a paycheck,” she said, noting that she’s dipping into her savings to cover costs and attend scientific conferences.
Callaham believes the cuts are part of the administration’s plan to erode public trust in science. And looking forward, she’s not optimistic about those dollars coming back.
Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in October, would axe National Science Foundation funding for fellowships, scholarships and postdoctoral programs by more than 65%, likely cutting off thousands of early-career scientists.
Since March, the administration has already pulled more than 4,000 NSF and National Institute of Health awards from universities, worth about $10 billion. That includes more than 360 NIH-funded training grants, according to the grassroots website Grant Watch. A judge last week ordered the government to restore some of those NIH grants. It’s not yet clear what will happen with a lawsuit over the terminated NSF funding.
Massachusetts has lost more than any other state. Supporters of the administration’s actions say that was intentional. They say it’s time to rethink how — and where — taxpayer-funded science gets done.
“There’s nothing special and magical about the water in the Charles River that makes people better researchers,” said Jay Greene, an education policy researcher at The Heritage Foundation.
Greene said there are great research universities throughout the United States that could use more support, and right now, he contends, too much money flows to higher education hubs like Massachusetts.
“Harvard snaps up researchers from around the country with the war chest that it builds up with taxpayer money,” he said. “Well, maybe they’ll get moved to somewhere else. And that might be bad for Boston, but it might be really great for St. Louis or Nashville.”
Critics warn these reductions are hitting those places, too, and in the end, will hollow out the nation’s scientific research pipeline.
“You have a bunch of people who are in the middle of their graduate studies who could be cut off,” said chemist Holden Thorp, former chancellor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and editor-in-chief of Science.
Thorp said wealthy private schools can absorb some of the blow. Public schools? Not so much.
For example, UNC Chapel Hill planned to strengthen its position in the national research landscape with a new building. That plan is now on pause due to terminated grants and uncertainty around future federal research funding.
“We’re going to have a lost generation of scientists,” he said. “Even if things come back down the road, it’s going to be very hard to build that back.”
