There are so many reasons university endowments can't make up for the dramatic cuts the Trump administration has planned for science. Here are a few. Thanks to @donmoyn.bsky.social for the platform. - ThreadSky

epopppp.bsky.social • 66 days ago

There are so many reasons university endowments can't make up for the dramatic cuts the Trump administration has planned for science.

Here are a few. Thanks to @donmoyn.bsky.social for the platform.

Comments

mkfeeney.bsky.social•66 days ago

I will never not be surprised at how little faculty know about university operations.

wndlb.bsky.social•65 days ago

The real question is why ‘direct costs’ are only like 2/3 of what the project costs, what a plumber would bid. It verges on ‘consumer’ fraud.

jbenmenachem.com•66 days ago

Our union has been doing some research into this bc admin said PhD raises necessitated cohort cuts—CU is really conservative in endowment management. They only spend about half of the yearly legal limit from the endowment and around 1/3 of funds are “no strings attached.”

jbenmenachem.com•66 days ago

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025/02/05/against-austerity-why-we-must-fight-against-columbia-cutting-phd-cohorts-based-on-lies/

jerseyflight.bsky.social•66 days ago

Finally, someone calling it austerity!

epopppp.bsky.social•66 days ago

There can definitely be room for redirecting some spending and I think the amount varies a lot place to place. Budgets are always political (as I know you know)

qm61.bsky.social•65 days ago

I think the goal of Elon is to essentially corporatise research by reducing government funding and taxing endowments - the amount saved will allow for a lower corporate tax rate and direct corporate industry grants to fund R&D.

All part of the process of control of investment and endeavour

kanlaw.bsky.social•65 days ago

5 bullet points about what you accomplished last week

[email protected]

tbapple.bsky.social•66 days ago

So this idiot running our Country doesn't know what "Fixed Costs" are on an Income Statement?
He is right though, Food and Healthcare also would be a lot cheeper if grocery stores and hospitals didn't have to pay overhead like rent and buying equipment.

mackenzlemore.bsky.social•66 days ago

If we just stop buying all these useless, middle-men hospital beds and respirators, hospitals could be efficient and profitable again.

chaybristol.bsky.social•66 days ago

Musk is obviously talking nonsense.

Either he is exceptionally dim yet arrogant enough to take a quick look at a very complicated thing and assume he understands it better than everyone else. Or he is deliberately sabotaging science and then lying about it.

IMHO, it is probably all of the above.

etnernaloptimist.bsky.social•66 days ago

📌

greatscottusa.bsky.social•66 days ago

How easy or difficult is it for researchers to obtain jobs outside of the United States?

verbingnouns.bsky.social•66 days ago

Not at all easy, and getting harder. The market has been flooded by great researchers for a decade+, and visa restrictions can make it expensive (and unappealing for host institutions) to hire int'lly. In particular this is true in Anglo countries like Canada, UK, NZ, Oz. And this is hardly new.

rmcneely.bsky.social•66 days ago

Great explanation. I'm definitely one of those who's been wondering why endowments can't make up a part of the funding gap.

raultoblerone.bsky.social•65 days ago

Now do an explainer on what overhead pays for.

joyritr.bsky.social•65 days ago

Go into the Code of Federal Regulations and look it up: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/subchapter-A/part-75?toc=1

raultoblerone.bsky.social•65 days ago

Appendix to Part 75? Which Part?

joyritr.bsky.social•65 days ago

Try Appendix III.

joyritr.bsky.social•65 days ago

You can find the indirect cost rate agreement requirements for IHEs in the index.

bdhollow.bsky.social•65 days ago

Sean Carroll has already done that, and also explained that Musk doesn't understand how funding works...
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/12/bonus-cuts-to-science-funding-and-why-they-matter/

raultoblerone.bsky.social•65 days ago

Thanks. Interesting background on the history of university overhead costs (sincerely) that we know MAGA cares deeply about (snarkly). These arrangements have been negotiated by reasonable parties for decades. Now, a chain-pulling power play for nothing other than the power. Bend the knee.

marcellograz.bsky.social•66 days ago

Notice how every single time HigherEd is mentioned we all turn to the few, Vance-making privates. While publics are f**** sideways by dems and goppers. 🤣🤦‍♂️

rosemaryandrock.bsky.social•65 days ago

This was so informative. Thanks for explaining.

wtf-means-wtf.bsky.social•66 days ago

It saddens me to see NIH's twitter account being used as a source of Nazi propaganda.

bdhollow.bsky.social•65 days ago

Insane that Musk is in charge of this when he doesn't even understand how overheads work.

aninsggirb.bsky.social•66 days ago

📌

colinaut.bsky.social•66 days ago

Not to mention that part of their plan is to next come after and steal the endowments

bdgesq.bsky.social•66 days ago

Agreed that endowments are insufficient to sub in for NIH funds. But donated funds can generally be spent readily. Universities and private foundation managers often say otherwise but that is not what the relevant state law actually says. See UPMIFA section 4, https://www.uniformlaws.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=d88fe964-fa49-9b1e-e197-2389fcc49990&forceDialog=0.

clemsongamecock.bsky.social•65 days ago

No. Sure, schools love unrestricted donations. Some schools use “annual fund” drives for that. But most donors… say 70-ish percent — target their donation. And then that’s all it can be used for.

bdgesq.bsky.social•65 days ago

About half of college endowment dollars have some restrictions. Few of those have any legally meaningful temporal limits; see UPMIFA. So "restricted" funds can swap in for other sources -- you can move financial aid dollars over to research support, then move in added restricted funds to fin. aid.

clemsongamecock.bsky.social•65 days ago

But surely you realize that this is for a minority of institutions. A sliver of post-secondary opportunity have enough revenue from other sources to operate for more than 12 months.

bdgr16.bsky.social•65 days ago

In my experience, it’s not state law but donor wishes that constrain the use of funds. Donors often donate to support specific things. They don’t want their contribution to just disappear into a general-purpose slush fund. Depts. that ignore those wishes risk forfeiting future donations.

raultoblerone.bsky.social•65 days ago

Yes. As explained in the article.

grimmholt.bsky.social•66 days ago

I guess Elon figures that if he cuts university endowments down, it'll make up for his own lacking endowment

estarianne.bsky.social•66 days ago

Elon Musk does not know how universities work, but he has reached a point where he doesn't believe there's anything he doesn't know.

saxonwaker.bsky.social•66 days ago

Can he believe that tech bros with hundreds of billions in stock holdings don’t pay taxes?

allisonmckim.bsky.social•65 days ago

So glad your explainer is out in an additional form! Very helpful. What is the "scholarship" designated section of UMich's endowment (as opposed to "research")?

n83z01qbui.bsky.social•66 days ago

@nick-carmody.bsky.social #MoronMusk #ElonFungus

naggy.bsky.social•66 days ago

I love how they're completely mad about China, and while at the same time planning on gutting our research enough that it would be handing China the top spot in science research for decades.

writerartisteh.bsky.social•64 days ago

Can you believe the world’s most selfish man is siphoning off even more in tax cuts?

upstatedem.bsky.social•66 days ago

Even Robert Oppenheimer could not have mastered the atom working in his garage with tools from a local hardware store.

He needed labs and equipment and support staff.

jaoswald.bsky.social•66 days ago

Oppenheimer was a (scientifically capable) administrator for the Manhattan Project. He would be counted in the overhead. Not that they were pinching pennies on it.

upstatedem.bsky.social•66 days ago

True. And he was a physicist for decades before.

upstatedem.bsky.social•66 days ago

Curious whether Musk is going after NASA grants.

jsargentr.bsky.social•66 days ago

I might use the Musk Precedent to demolish the "policy" funds. Why should anyone be held to such obligations if not the G?

jsargentr.bsky.social•66 days ago

I'm not saying it would work, but it would force an important conversation.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•66 days ago

I guess one upside of this catastrophe is people (including academics) finally learning how overhead and endowments work? And learning a bit about how $$ flows on campuses.

themodsisyphus.bsky.social•66 days ago

I was thinking this as well. I only learned this in the past few years.

epopppp.bsky.social•66 days ago

It's useful information to have!

drawerknob.bsky.social•65 days ago

i don’t know how to combine posts on bluesky (or if it’s possible) so i’m just going to drop this here and say yes! i concur. selfishly, the shitification of the commons has been a really great curriculum for me thus far

venerablebidet.bsky.social•66 days ago

It's also worth noting that not many universities have 10s of billions sized endowments

venerablebidet.bsky.social•66 days ago

One of my pet peeves about higher ed discourse is that so much of it center around the Ivies, which are pretty damned atypical

auntrove.bsky.social•66 days ago

I said just that to someone a short time ago. They're acting like Harvard is the benchmark.

auntrove.bsky.social•66 days ago

The most brilliant man in the world who is making sweeping and devastating changes across the federal government doesn't know that a 60% overhead rate doesn't mean that 60% of the total funds are for overhead.

pieist.xenoplasm.com•66 days ago

In fairness, universities have in fact been guzzling money at a torrential rate for at least four decades now. It's just that it's been through the lifetime indentured-servitude indebtedness of their students, not through endowments. Once the government guaranteed that, tuition went off the charts.

bdgr16.bsky.social•65 days ago

The indebtedness of students is due largely to the drying up of state support for public education. When I was a student in the 80s, there was no in-state tuition. Because California wanted its citizens to be educated and therefore funded the UCs. My only expenses were food, rent, and books.

jillpanic.bsky.social•65 days ago

Me too. Reagan ended that quite tidily.

liannewildlife.bsky.social•66 days ago

📌

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