“You can’t have science without scientists,” California Representative Zoe Lofgren said to The New York Times, as National Science Foundation grant funding dropped to its lowest level in at least 35 years, below over 50% of its 10-year average. In 2025, the NSF awarded just $989 million in new grants as of late May less than half the usual rate with steepest cuts to early-career scientists, STEM education, and fundamental fields such as physics, engineering, and biology NSF grant funding as of May 21.
The scale of disruption is staggering. In Harvard University alone, nearly 1,000 grants totaling more than $2.4 billion have been rescinded, with the National Institutes of Health cutting more than 600 grants totaling about $2.2 billion Harvard researchers ravaged. Universities nationwide have imposed hiring freezes, let go of staff, and suspended new graduate admissions. At the NIH, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, 1,300 employees were dismissed and over $2 billion in grants cut short, halting projects on cancer, Alzheimer’s, and children’s health NIH budget slashing and firings.
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