Hey, university friends… Breathe.
The recent slashing of NIH indirect cost rates is unlikely to survive. It’s another Trump stunt.
Courts will have a say. And so will OMB.
And pharmaceutical companies won’t stand for it. NIH-backed research enjoys a ton of congressional (and lobbyist) support.
The recent slashing of NIH indirect cost rates is unlikely to survive. It’s another Trump stunt.
Courts will have a say. And so will OMB.
And pharmaceutical companies won’t stand for it. NIH-backed research enjoys a ton of congressional (and lobbyist) support.
Comments
https://bsky.app/profile/luckytran.com/post/3lhn6ehgv7s2k
Here’s what one of his Project 2025 co-authors wrote:
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
And we do just fine. We have much leaner administrative costs.
Yes, universities could get leaner, but not 15%-level lean, I think
This massive, punitive cut is awful — and won’t stand in court — but some efficiency gains eventually need to happen…
But with budget shortfalls, and academic classism where graduate researchers and some staff already don’t get a living wage… 😔
But for many research programs the real costs are the same, except the university has gotten bloated with top heavy administration and wildly inefficient facilities.
Ironically, national labs are even more inefficient.
https://bsky.app/profile/jmlilly.bsky.social/post/3lho4ew35uk2o
But so are the crazy admin costs and facility mismanagement (with huge levels of underutilized space) of many universities.
But then I've spent 11 years running science museums and non-profit research institutions — with about 1/3 to 1/2 the overhead. For the same kind of research.
But overhead rates of 55-60-70% or more — with vast inefficiencies in admin and facilities (which are often sitting empty these days) — is wildly unsustainable. Same with tuition costs….