AAUP Members: Write to your elected officials and urge them to protect research funding in the Congressional budget process. More here (member login required).
President Trump’s ongoing attacks on research funding are part of an extinction-level threat to higher education. Slashing this funding means ending life-saving research projects, shuttering labs, laying off faculty and staff, curtailing undergraduate research opportunities, cutting graduate programs, and stunting the next generation of scientists. It will also have devastating effects throughout our institutions as research funding cuts will further squeeze already tight budgets.
The president demanded steep funding cuts for most federal research programs in his 2026 budget proposal. But we don’t have to accept them, and Congress doesn’t either. Federal research investment saves lives, grows the economy, and supports students. Polling shows that most Americans agree.
AAUP members are working with a diverse coalition to preserve federal funding for science and research. Our message to legislators is:
As educators, we know that budget cuts that target research and students hurt all of us. Cuts to research and to student aid will only serve to make education less accessible and less affordable for students in our state and across the country. Future nurses, teachers, and engineers will have fewer opportunities to learn their trades. Students from all kinds of backgrounds deserve an opportunity to become educated and contribute to the community by filling critical professions.
Investments in research and in students are also critical to supporting our communities and our economy. Our state relies on colleges and universities to bring students, jobs, and innovation. When we lose research funding, we lose jobs, labs, graduate students, and future economic opportunities in our state. In turn, our restaurants, gas stations, real estate market and much more will be affected. This could have an enormous impact.
Our health and safety rely on scientific research. America is currently the world leader in cutting-edge medical and scientific research and we want to keep it that way—and even at current rates of investment, China may surpass the United States in scientific investment soon. AAUP members, our loved ones and community members depend on medical research to provide us with safe medicines and treatments for serious illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
We urge legislators to use their power to protect us from these devastating cuts by voting to:
- Maintain the funding levels for the National Institutes of Health ($48.7 Million) and the National Science Foundation ($9 Million) proposed by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
- Preserve the critical appropriations provision that prohibits the Trump administration from making unilateral changes to indirect costs – changing the formula for how grant funds are disbursed would seriously endanger key operations at colleges and universities.
- Strengthen the legislative language and oversight efforts to ensure the Trump administration disburses federal grants in accordance with existing appropriations law and free from political interference.
- Protect access to education by opposing cuts to Pell grants for students with financial need, the TRIO program supporting first generation college students, loan programs for graduate students, and income-based repayment plans that protect college grads against default.