Red-State Universities Will Get Hit by Trump's Cuts, Too

New York Times

12-06-2025

A few weeks ago, on social media, President Trump wrote, 'I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land. What a great investment that would be for the USA.'
The message was, presumably, that by going to war with Harvard, he's getting a twofer: sticking it to 'woke' blue-state elites while also making blue-collar workers in red states a priority. He's not wrong that we should invest more in vocational education and do more to improve the economic conditions for working-class Americans.
But his joust with Harvard — his moves, in particular, to freeze more than $2 billion in federal research funding and cancel federal contracts with the university — is just the most visible part of a wider assault on institutions of higher learning. Last month, Nature reported that the administration has proposed cutting over $20 billion from the budget for the National Institutes of Health; The Times reported that grants funded by the National Science Foundation were down more than 50 percent compared with the average from 2015 to 2024.
Rather than striking a blow for red-state America, these cuts would actually take a heavy toll on many of the communities in states that went for Mr. Trump in the last election — whose research universities serve as crucial anchors for industry and innovation.
If Mr. Trump wants to make all of America great again, he shouldn't cut funding for scientific research. He should increase it.
According to a recent report, over the past decade, N.I.H. research funding, which in large part is distributed to universities in the form of grants, has helped generate $787 billion for the American economy and an average of more than 370,000 jobs each year. Every dollar of N.I.H.-funded research generates a total of $2.56 in economic activity.
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