The U.S. Congress is pushing back on attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to make drastic cuts in what the government pays universities to support research on their campus. The response could bolster efforts by a coalition of higher education associations to revise how federal agencies calculate these so-called indirect costs to ensure universities are reimbursed for what they say are the full costs of research.
Three bills moving forward that would set U.S. spending levels for the 2026 fiscal year starting on 1 October express a range of views on the payments, which amount to tens of billions of dollars annually. But even though Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress, none endorses the low flat rate that four federal research agencies attempted to impose earlier this year—moves that have been temporarily blocked by federal judges.
Trump administration officials and many congressional Republicans believe the current payments are excessive and have provided universities with a “slush fund” to spend however they wish. In February, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shocked the research community by declaring it was lowering those payments, often about 60% of what the government spends on the research itself at leading universities, to 15%. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the departments of Energy (DOE) and Defense (DOD) announced similar policies a few months later.
