Federal funding cuts shake graduate admissions for MIT undergraduates
Senior Paige Yeung: “It’s frustrating that the current political situation is making it even harder to seek a career in my field.”
On Jan. 27, the White House issued a memo temporarily suspending federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance until further review. One such cut that affects universities is the indirect cost cuts from the National Institute of Health (NIH). On Feb. 7, the NIH announced a major federal funding cut by means of a 15% “indirect cost” cap, significantly impacting the financial resources of universities across the country.
Most grants are made up of both direct and indirect costs; examples of direct costs include salaries and wages for employees, materials for research, and travel expenses. Indirect costs, on the other hand, fund data storage, utilities, and other needs that may arise while conducting research. In the fiscal year of 2024, the NIH spent $47.3 billion funding research. The average indirect cost rate prior to this cut was around 27%, with some Ivy League universities, like Harvard, having rates as high as 60%. MIT’s indirect cost rate is currently 59%.
Although the NIH estimates these cuts will save the U.S. government around $4 billion, at least 22 different states argue these cuts are “arbitrary” and “unlawful.” President Kornbluth explained in an email announcement sent on Feb. 10 that even the NIH indirect cost cuts, which total to “$30 to $35 million a year at MIT,” will affect the university’s ability to conduct cutting-edge research. She further announced that MIT has joined the American Council on Education in filing suit against “indiscriminate cuts from taking effect” in federal court.
Besides the NIH, other federal funding sources have become uncertain: in particular, the recent National Science Foundation (NSF) grant freeze. The NSF stated in a Jan. 28 memo that “all review panels, new awards, and all payments of funds under open awards will be paused as the agency conducts the required reviews and analysis.” In his Feb. 24 announcement, Vice President of Research Ian Waitz advised principal investigators to remain conservative about new funding commitments.
In her announcement, Kornbluth wrote, “If these proposed cuts are allowed to proceed, they will do immediate harm to work that saves American lives.” She also stated, “In the longer term, they would severely degrade the research capabilities that drive American innovation and leadership in advancing scientific and technological progress for human health.”
These cuts also have significantly altered the graduate program admissions process. As federal funding for research is looking less and less reliable, seniors like Isaac Lock ’25, a biological engineering major, and Eleanor Winkler ’25, a physics major, are finding graduate school results to be impacted accordingly. Lock noted “delays in admissions decisions, greater selectivity, and warnings that the future is uncertain” from graduate programs he has applied to, including the Baylor College of Medicine Genetics & Genomics and Johns Hopkins Human Genetics and Genomics PhD programs. Winkler also reported a similar experience, explaining that the graduate school she applied to has delayed their acceptances and plans to reduce their cohort sizes.
The natural and physical sciences aren’t the only fields being impacted by this. Paige Yeung ’25, a mathematics major, said that although her field provides academic year funding, due to the current situation, “summer funding is going to be very uncertain” and she is “afraid [her] stipend will not be enough to live on.” Yeung wrote, “My field already gets barely any funding and is quite far removed from politics, so it's frustrating that the current political situation is making it even harder to seek a career in my field.”