The Trump administration wants to trim the federal budget by cutting back on reimbursements to universities and research institutions—a move that would deal a blow to on-campus scientific research, representatives of higher education associations told Inside Higher Ed. The cuts would be meant to account for a proposed $5.8 billion reduction to the 2018 National Institutes of Health budget.
The reimbursements President Donald Trump is targeting cover administrative costs, which Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price argued last week can be axed without curtailing research. But higher education groups expressed concern that schools — which already shell out their own money for staffing, facilities, and other administrative expenses not fully covered by federal reimbursements — will not be able to produce as much research under these cuts.
“Frankly, some of our universities won’t be able to figure out a way to pay for those costs,” Tobin Smith, vice president for policy at the Association of American Universities, told Inside Higher Ed.
