On January 29, 2025, my lab at the University of Chicago gathered for an emergency meeting because the federal government had just frozen NIH funding. Our principal investigator explained the situation with a tension I’d never heard before. The provost of UChicago called for experiments to pause, equipment orders to cease, and travel to be postponed. The order put $52 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding at risk for UChicago alone. But the issue is far bigger than one university or one executive directive. It’s part of a sweeping political shift that threatens to destabilize how research is valued in the United States.
At the heart of this debate is something most people have never heard of—indirect costs. These are costs universities incur not for petri dishes or test tubes, but for everything else that makes research possible: lab space, electricity, maintenance of high-tech equipment, administrative support, safety compliance, and more. While the public often sees only the breakthroughs, these hidden costs are the scaffolding that makes discovery possible.
Universities negotiate their indirect cost rates with the federal government. At UChicago, that rate is 64%, meaning for every $1 of direct research spending, the university receives an additional $0.64 to cover support infrastructure. But critics, like Trump-appointed officials and figures like Vivek Ramaswamy, have seized on this number to argue that universities are misusing taxpayer money. Ramaswamy, now co-director of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), falsely claimed that 70% of NIH grants go toward “overhead slush funds” to subsidize DEI initiatives.
This is not only a gross distortion—it’s poor math. If a grant includes $100,000 in direct costs, the indirect costs would be $64,000, making the total grant $164,000. To find what percentage of that total is indirect costs: 64,000 ÷ 164,000 = 0.39. In reality, about 39% of total grant funds go toward indirect costs at UChicago, and national averages hover closer to 20–25%. Still, the administration has pushed for a uniform 15% cap on indirect cost reimbursements. This would disproportionately harm large, research-intensive institutions like UChicago, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford which conduct the majority of federally funded science. These universities maintain vast networks of laboratories, core facilities, and high-compliance administrative systems that smaller institutions simply don’t have.
NIH funding is the engine behind most major medical breakthroughs in the U.S. Basic biomedical discoveries—those made in university labs, funded by public dollars—form the backbone of nearly all new FDA-approved therapies. These discoveries are shared openly, reducing duplication, lowering drug costs, and accelerating innovation. This is the key difference between private funds and federal. Federal funds acknowledge that funding early career scientists and projects that may produce slower returns on investment is an essential responsibility of the federal government, which recognizes scientific progress as a public good.
This isn’t about whether the government can be more efficient or whether universities should be more accountable—Zajac from the Office of Research himself recognized that universities could do a more thorough job of reporting on indirect costs. However, these proposed slashes to funding do not reflect an aim for efficiency but are rather a crippling of systems that could’ve used reform.
And the stakes aren’t theoretical. They’re personal. They live in the lab tech who can’t order chemicals. The grad student who fears their stipend might evaporate. The undergrad, like me, wondering what kind of scientific future we’re walking into.
So, why should this matter to anyone outside the UChicago Labs?
Without federal support, private companies would need to take on this foundational research themselves, a task they’re rarely willing or equipped to do. The result would be slower progress, higher prices, and more scientific silos. Public research ensures collaboration and equity—values that markets alone won’t prioritize.
This June, I’ll graduate alongside friends bound for PhDs in materials chemistry and chemical biology. We’ve learned how to pipette and publish, but more importantly, we’ve learned that science doesn’t thrive in isolation—it depends on public investment. The freeze on NIH funding isn’t just a budget decision. It’s a signal about what kind of future we’re willing to build. If we allow the erosion of research infrastructure today, we compromise the discoveries and scientists of tomorrow. The fight to protect federal science funding isn’t just about universities—it’s about safeguarding a national commitment to curiosity and public goods. That’s why it matters to all of us.