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Grants from the National Institutes of Health come with additional money for overhead. A planned $4 billion cut would leave colleges with large budget gaps.
- Published Feb. 7, 2025Updated Feb. 8, 2025, 3:12 p.m. ET
The nation’s universities and academic medical centers were reeling on Saturday from a directive by the Trump administration to slash funding for medical research, a decision that doctors and scientists said would have a devastating effect on studies aimed at finding treatments for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
The change is aimed at reducing the amount of tax dollars that universities spend on overhead costs. The National Institutes of Health, which announced the move Friday evening, said $9 billion of $35 billion — or about 26 percent — of grant dollars distributed last year had gone to overhead.
The new policy, which takes effect on Monday, will cap “indirect funds” for costs like buildings, utilities and support staff at 15 percent and is aimed at saving $4 billion.
Dr. David J. Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, said the policy would sharply cut funds to universities and medical centers that do N.I.H.-funded research, likely limiting the number of studies that could go forward.
“These are real consequences, longer waits for cures and for diagnosis, slower scientific progress, losing out to competitors around the world, and fewer jobs,” he said, adding: “Those who are facing any health challenges will suffer from less biomedical research.”
Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, a Duke University professor of medicine who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012, said that indirect costs pay for the purchase and maintenance of highly sophisticated microscopes that enable him to examine the structure of molecules.
