Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor

Yale received $899 million in federal grants and contracts in the 2024 fiscal year to fund research and financial aid. Ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election, the News spoke with higher education experts about how political changes could affect the federal funding Yale receives for research.

Experts agreed that there is bipartisan support for research funding and any cuts would likely be the result of larger budgetary constrictions. However, they said, the outcomes of Congressional and presidential elections may affect which areas receive funding.

Yale receives federal research funding primarily from the National Institutes of Health, which so far this year has awarded Yale with a total of $643,720,557 in grants and contracts. Other agencies that fund research at Yale include the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and the Department of Education.

“We’re very dependent on income from different federal sources,” said Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis.

Additionally, Yale recently posted a job listing for a DC-based director of federal relations to work as “an ambassador and the face of Yale in Washington,” advocating for “federal policies that advance Yale’s central missions.”

Support for funding universities persists despite controversies

In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, universities have been at the center of national debates over diversity, equity and inclusion policies, campus protests and dramatic showdowns of university presidents in Congress. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance LAW ’13 has referred to universities as “the enemy” and often criticizes elite universities.

In 2023, ahead of the Republican presidential primaries, Former President Donald Trump released the policy plan Agenda 47, which proposes “taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments” to endow a new “strictly non-political” institution free from “wokeness.”

Conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation also detailed plans for a second presidential term for Trump in a 900-page policy document known as Project 2025. Trump has distanced himself from the plan, but CNN reported that at least 140 former Trump administration officials were connected to Project 2025.

“Project 2025 will significantly impact schools like Yale,” wrote Royel Johnson, director of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, as it would redirect research funding towards conservative priorities. 

However, experts interviewed told the News that political debates about higher education are not likely to have much practical effect on funding levels for research universities.

The amount of money available to research universities depends on the total discretionary funding allocated by Congress in the federal budget. Stein said that in general, Democrats are more willing to increase this spending, but the “revenue framework for what all this looks like is going to be very much up in the air as Congress gets into these negotiations.”

Tristan Stein, associate director for higher education at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told the News that Congress members across the aisle understand the importance of research to the economy and to universities in their districts, regardless of partisan talking points. Federal funding for university research tends to have bipartisan support, and universities are likely to see similar funding levels under the leadership of either party, he believes.

Ben Cecil, the senior education policy advisor at center-left think tank Third Way, said that because the budgeting process is complicated to explain, federal funding is not usually a topic that persuades the average voter, so politicians do not discuss it on the campaign trail.

Data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics shows a steady, moderate increase in the amount of research spending by universities funded by federal sources across all White House administrations from 1972 to 2022.

Lewis told the News that Yale provides “a lot of value for money” in terms of research, citing the University’s extensive contributions to knowledge across fields. He said that Yale and other elite universities are large drivers in the U.S.’s economy and reputation. 

“Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, I hope that whoever’s in office will recognize that,” he said, emphasizing that in addition to the economic benefits that STEM research brings, the contributions of humanities departments to society should not be overlooked. 

Congressional majority, president affect research priorities

Stein said that which research areas receive funding may vary based on different policy priorities between the parties and trade-offs in the budget negotiation process.

“Depending upon the outcome of this election, certain areas of research might receive more funding or would not be funded at all,” he said. “But then that’s a question about where the research dollars are being allocated, it’s not a question of how many dollars which institution is receiving.”

Johnson wrote that Project 2025 policies would shift priorities for agencies like NIH and NSF away from funding research on “critical social issues and inequities,” like racial justice, climate change and health disparities toward “projects more aligned with far-right conservative political interests.” 

Morgan Scott Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, cited a section of Project 2025 which states that the NIH should “create and promote a research agenda that supports pro-life policies and explores the harms, both mental and physical, that abortion has wrought on women and girls.”

“Does this mean only pro-life research would get funded?” Polikoff questioned. “It’s not hard to imagine other kinds of ideological or ‘free speech’ litmus tests that ultimately would direct federal research dollars to conservative-leaning institutions.”

Kenneth K Wong, an education policy professor at Brown University, echoed the sentiment, writing that the policy differences between the two major presidential candidates that could affect the “federal research agenda” are substantial. 

Wong suggested that a Trump administration would constrain research funding in DEI, international research collaboration and reducing fossil fuels use, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris’ administration would increase federal funding for research on climate change, pandemic preparation, K-12 education, college access and workforce training.

However, the power to finalize a budget lies with Congress, which develops a budget resolution based on the president’s proposal and controls appropriations.

“Really the congressional majority and who’s running each side of the Capitol … is far more influential in the process, because they’re the ones that are ultimately making those decisions in the budget process,” Cecil said. “A lot of the determination of where the chips fall is who’s elected [to Congress] and who’s running these different committees.”

Robert Kelchen, head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, wrote that for major changes in higher education funding to occur, one political party would need unified control in Washington.

There would be little movement, he wrote, if the House of Representatives and the Senate or the White House are controlled by different parties.

“Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, we’ve seen some improvement in funding, especially when it’s perceived as being in the national interest, like things having to do with various kinds of science,” Lewis said.

The National Institutes of Health headquarters are located at 9000 Rockville Pike in Bethesda, Maryland.