Trump’s budget cuts are endangering the future of medical research, as colleges and universities in the Big Apple are freezing hiring and warning that the cuts are destroying the very existence of their research programs.
On Thursday, the State University of New York (SUNY), the largest public university system in the United States with 64 campuses, sent a letter backed by 14 other universities to New York’s congressional delegation protesting against the drastic cuts to medical research. The other institutions convened for the letter included Columbia, NYU, Cornell, CUNY, Rochester, and Syracuse, which receive significant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the leading medical research agency in the United States that is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.
In the letter, the researchers specified that: “without continued support for academic research, most universities would not be able to sustain their curricula. In total, more than $3.5 billion in grants last year contributed to initiatives that are helping to cure cancer and leading to the discovery of the next medical breakthrough that will change the world,” it continued.
Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health is trying to limit the costs of medical research, such as personnel or laboratory facilities. The plan is currently on hold in the courts after several organizations representing universities and research institutes sued to reverse the cuts.
President Trump also threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that maintain DEI policies or are deemed to have failed to protect Jewish students from harassment. On Friday, the Trump administration suspended $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, because of protests against the war in Gaza.
