It is embarrassing and infuriating how the universities are reacting. This is an excellent time to discuss efficiency and redundancy, to decrease bureaucracy. We can’t service this level of federal debt forever and everyone must do their part. Take nothing for granted in this world-your job, your grant, your indirect costs. What people are upset about is the change. Adapt. We don’t even know how effective the NIH is at changing the needle on American health.
This is not a simple "we hate change" reaction. As long time (tenured for what it is worth) university professor, this is a "my God the grift, and thus my job, will go away" reaction. That is the panic. This overhead reliably goes to things that I 100% oppose -- even more administrators to do things that should not be done. I am thrilled they are finally going to cut it back/out. In the end, not only taxpayers but the schools themselves (if they are salvageable) will be better off.
You misunderstand that this is not a reaction of "oh my god, my job will go away". Faculty will still be able to direct charge their salary to grants. They won't have anyone to clean up their labs, or handle their administration (which is extensive and they are completely incapable of doing themselves), they won't have maintained lab space and equipment.
It's weird to me how many faculty and MDs I've seen (most in the minority, but still not non-zero), make these totally specious comments on things they don't know about or understand. As a group, you have expertise in one area that you're trained in, but have severe Dunning-Kruger in virtually all other aspects of life - you think you're an expert at everything and are unable to understand other things that fall outside your scope. So strange.
Sarah, All of those functions are in the DIRECT costs of my grants. That includes rent (even though it is university space), janitorial, utilities -- all directly costed. We also have direct costs for the staff involved in the (yes you are right, onerous) reporting. The overhead goes virtually entirely to hiring DEI and other unrelated-to-what-we-do administrative staff who, believe me, do not contribute to my research or the operation of my labs.
The only way those costs are considered direct is of you are "off-campus", and those rates are capped at 26%. If your university is charging those costs and you're on campus you are violating the code of federal regulations which dictates how to account for direct and indirect costs - because your institution would be double dipping. I know Washington State University and George Washington (I don't work at either but manage subs with them) pays rent off-campus for some of their programs, but they charge a 26% rate and build those "overhead costs" into their direct cost budget. As far as using indirects for DEI hiring I call BS, because I haven't seen a university in America that discloses what they spend their indirects on - it's conjecture on your part. I do know that they have real costs that they have to pay for, so that is more likely where the money is going to instead of some made up DEI thing. You do realize universities get money from other sources and pay for those initiatives out of other pots?
I have been running labs for decades. I have a pretty good idea how they work. Of course all funds are fungible so I cannot prove that my particular overhead went to a particular thing -- I am sure that is deliberate. All I know is that they go into central administration (sounds like that is where you live) and they pay for whatever appeals to them (among which is DEI). The administrative sinkhole (the admin staff at my school is now 5x larger than when I started -- the faculty is about the same as are the student counts) contribute little of value in most of our opinions. I am sure those who are there think they are doing a wonderful job, but not one of them would be missed if they all disappeared by those of us who actually see patients and do the research.
I don't live in central - I never have. I've only worked in departments and research centers directly with PIs. I assure you couldn't do high quality research without research administrators. At this point I've worked with hundreds of faculty internally and externally and a few things: 1.) none of you actually understand how indirects work, you all think you do, but its a multiplier that many seem to not be able to apply correctly to your budgets at the bare minimum, and you certainly have no idea what happens on the backend, or how they are calculated or negotiated 2.) you have no idea how much invisible work gets done on your behalf, and 3.) I DO think that central offices are not transparent (to their detriment) about how these funds are spent, AND they also hoard way too much of the recovery and do not share with the generating department - which is BS.
So congrats! You run a lab and provide direct patient care - that's great, but it doesn't make you an expert on indirects.
Is it possible you are running a lab funded by NSF? Or are doing physics or engineering? I recently learned that not all disciplines structure direct and indirect costs the same way. For example in physics and engineering rent, utilities etc are billed as direct costs. But for the NIH they are indirect. This is why NIH indirect costs seem so high - they pay for everything except salaries of the people named in the grant application and the materials listed. If you are an NIH funded researcher, then rent, utilities, insurance, IT, HR, HR legal, patent legal, security, janitorial, EH&S, BSL-3, facilities, shipping and receiving, equipment contracts, etc are all indirect costs. Further, they not fungible nor unaccountable. All institutions must report their indirect costs with receipts to the NIH. These accounts are routinely audited. Everyone on this thread including Vinay (except Sarah) seems to think indirect costs= administrative overhead. It does not. Administrative overhead (the part everyone says is bloated) is only a fraction of indirect costs. In the private sector, 15% for administrative overhead is fairly typical. If that were all that was at stake then yes this proposal would be reasonable. Instead this proposal cuts off the electricity, water, rent, security etc. Yes we have grants in hand with the funded direct costs. And there will be no means to implement them.
100%! I worked in clinical research at a well-known tertiary medical institution in MN, & I support this message. Thank you, Dr Prasad, for saying what needed to be said. Hopefully, some of these universities will listen.
Another excellent article by Vinay! I wholeheartedly agree with everything he said here. I think the public is not only disgruntled with universities for their mismanagement of the COVID debacle but any person who has been following the crying over 60%+ indirects being cut to 15% has absolutely no sympathy for these universities who have been receiving ridiculously large amounts of money with no requirement for reporting how it was used. If universities accept 10-15% indirects from Bill Gates and Chan- Zuckerberg, then why should the US government pay any more than that?
Great post. Universities should be working to craft a compromise reform proposal. They know where the problems and waste are. Should be room for common ground to cut needless bureaucracy in grant submission, contracting, and reporting. The public is not going to sympathize with the position that wealthy universities cannot afford any cut in IDCs.
Love Vinay’s consistently sensible interventions. Today’s NYT Nick Kristof in the NYT presented his second column suggesting a sensible reading list for the left leaning liberal tribe. Last month he supported mandated drug treatment for some of the people some of the time. We need more sensible people willing to dialogue and offer solutions
Whenever I discuss with outsiders, or even colleagues who are not grant-funded, the nearly 60% overhead at my university and many others, theya re stunned. I try to explain why some of this is justified. But I can't justify 60%, don't trykl and would not be believed if I did try.
What I'd like to know is wherther savings on overhead will mean less total rsarch funding, or more funding of the researchers. One can hope for the latter,. but that might be a futile hope.
Bernie, you do know that 60% at Northwestern isn't some arbitrary number right? That there is formula, that generally gets negotiated downward by the federal government, and includes an extensive space, equipment, and cost accounting inventory.
Is there no middle ground for any of you people? I am so, so, so tired of seeing your criticisms, not one of them constructive! Did you ever think that universities might be grappling with NIH funding as well as other issues without broadcasting every detail to you? Yes, there were mistakes during the Covid pandemic, but in my view while paying very close attention, they were made in good faith. I worked for half of my career in academic research and half in pharmaceutical. I firmly believe there is considerably more waste (and probably fraud) in industry.
Mistakes were not made in “good faith.” Moreover open debate of viewpoints was not permitted. And without this, we have no opportunity for a “middle ground.” While I respect your point of view, I have this one.
And you "know" this to be true? In retrospect, I think public health officials lost sight of "flattening the curve" intended to preserve the ability of hospitals to take care of the sickest patients. Yes, restrictions should have been lifted earlier. Anger and outrage don't serve any useful purpose. That's what you can get on Twitter (X). I thought Substack would be better.
Nope. It wasn't "good faith". The healthScare industry is entirely driven by for profit corporations, the Medical Industrial Complex, and the MIC owns government policy.
ALL policies during the Covid hysteria were PROFIT DRIVEN.
I stopped calling it "pandemic" a while back. I prefer to talk about the Covid Hysteria.
Hysteria is a proper word usage for the present day mindset by a certain majority of "scientists" who have convinced the world that "all preventable illnesses" (of course they're referring only to flu/cold/childhood illnesses, the new religion, and completely ignore all the lifestyle ailments the majority of society suffer from) must be "eradicated".
Philosophically, it's a terribly strange concept to want to "eradicate contagious illnesses".
The word pandemic is going to need an executive order in order to have any actual meaning.
Just like we needed two executive orders (Trump's + HHS, I know, not exactly EO, but similar) to reestablish that mammals have only two sexes, and those two sexes apply to 100% of mammals and 100% of humans.
The word pandemic is presently loosely defined as any virus that crosses a border. It's a silly definition. The word deserves a proper definition. It's needs a lethality function.
The Bubonic plague decimated 30% of Europeans.
Smallpox decimated 95% of the America's First Nations.
Those were pandemics.
SARS-CoV-2 killed less than 0.04% of humanity annually for two years, OF THE 0.8% who were going to die those years anyway.
Mathematically, just, meh.
Once you get rid of the hysteria, ALL the downstream hysterical policies cease to exist, for it is the hysteria, and the hysteria alone, that breaks people's brains.
YES! And…the other thing I’d like to see is all these fancy *world class* economics departments study immigration! Why do we have no idea how many is the right number at a time? And what is the balance of protectionism to importing new talent? And *who* fiscally makes sense? When I started digging for data there was so little and it was very dated. Notably it was before many of the more generous social welfare programs (in my blue state & blue city for example) there are a lot of programs, funding & vouchers people with no status (ie illegal) can & do receive.
The Left used to know that mass immigration increases the size of the labour pool, which causes salary stagnation. Sometime around 20 years ago, the Left died. Now it's just wokeism, I can't even call it Left anymore.
Best nugget in this treasure box of insights: 'Universities get public funding because they're supposed to allow the full breadth of public ideas and understanding...' What a hopeful, elevated idea. May it come to pass.
I would love to debate you! The premise of this article doesn't really say much except universities need to host debates. Department chairs and whole universities aren't going to influence the reform that needs to happen at NIH by hosting debates.
The things that need to happen at NIH to reduce burden are largely related to things that faculty don't even deal with, not all, but a large number of things. I've worked in research administration for over 16 years and maybe we could reduce administration if faculty learned some things like what expanded authority means, or how to handle some simple tasks like no-cost-extensions (among others). Perhaps you are unaware that administration is capped at 26% within all rates (and has been since the 90's), when many institutions go far over that percentage. You are focusing on a negotiated percentage that has to be justified. It's math. And the government's stated goal in these negotiations is to "get good value for the American people." They don't just approve whatever.
Secondly, perhaps you should read up on the actual impact of indirect rates. Kelvin Droegemeier, PhD from the University of Oklahoma presented an entire analysis on this to congress in 2017: https://www.cogr.edu/sites/default/files/Droegemeier%20Full%20Written%20Testimony%20FINAL.pdf. He's not exactly some sort of academic, ivory tower hack. He left his job at UO and went on to serve in Trump 1.0 as a science policy advisor AFTER giving this testimony to congress.
I will say that many universities are not at all transparent with where these monies go - in most cases its not going to DEI programs, but it would be better if they would show how exactly the funds are directed. I'm so sorry but this is a very long article that isn't really serious about the issues.
Sorry but there is no possible way you can justify indirect costs in excess of 15% and no way you can justify different rates at different institutions.
Why not? Can you? I posted a 31 page testimony in a previous comment that explains how all this works and all you can come at me with is "there is no possible way you can justify indirect costs in excess of 15%?" Most private companies can't operate at 15%. Microsoft has a posted balance sheet floating around on the internet and their indirects are around 40%. What are you talking about?
You can convince yourself of anything but I’m afraid you’re talking out the back of your head and simply trying to justify the status quo which is wholly unjustifiable. As for indirect costs at Microsoft or for that matter apple what are you talking about. These companies are not funded by us taxpayers. Further Microsoft’s product is absolute garbage compared to apple. Maybe Microsoft need to waste less money on their own internal admin.
Okay great. You have nothing to actually add to the situation at hand. Have a great evening.
I'm not wasting time with people who a.) don't really understand the issue, and b.) can't be bothered to read and challenge their own assumptions and lack of knowledge.
You’re making a lot of assumptions there yourself regarding what I know and don’t know. It could be that I know a great deal more than you. You never know. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what you or I think. Rather it’s what the American public think. And when something smells like a fish it generally is a fish, in this case a boondoggle. If it weren’t the rate would be fixed and wouldn’t vary from institution to institution. You then say that training grants get only 8% in indirects. Well training grsnts could be administered by one person, two tops, and that doesn’t amount to an 8% overhead.
In any case, I’m afraid public opinion is overall really angry with the universities and they have what’s coming to them.
I DO THIS FOR MY JOB!! I'm not making assumptions. I actually know how all this works - you clearly do not. The American public doesn't get to arbitrarily make decisions about complicated things they don't understand or based on polling. They may not like it and think it's "outrageous", but that's not how/used to make policy in this country.
...And by the way. If you take the whole proportion of what NIH spends on indirects to direct costs, it's about 20% of the entire budget. Not all projects capture those high "research rates". Training grants get 8% for example. We also subcontract out things like equipment, subcontracts after the first $25k to get a modified direct cost total. Normalized it doesn't even end up being close to the full rate. Again, no one in this comments section, including the author understands how any of this works and you're all just blindly reacting to a rate which "seems ridiculous" to you.
If the Trump administration said let's have debates on NIH funding, everyone would agree. Instead they are slashing funding willy nilly. Think of how many important studies are in progress that are at risk of being eliminated. We are going to get a bunch of studies to pacify RFKJr. Studying vaccine side effects would not be high on my list when prioritizing limited funds, but I'm sure we'll waste a fortune on it.
What you stated is total and utter nonsense. It is indirect costs that are being cut not direct ones. So researchers will be unaffected but funding of humanities departments and dei initiatives with federal money will be hurt. And rightly so since one might ask what the exorbitant tuition fees are being used for. As for total nih funding this will remain the same which means that more not less r01 grants will be funded.
I wish that Vinay had given us references to posts revealing the attitudes of different universities. I otherwise wholeheartedly agree. My own medical school, the Baylor College of Medicine, seems to have expanded the number of VPs and new Faculty appointments, like dean of professionalism and dean for DEI. Medical students seem to be a very small part of the vision of this medical school. Research dollars are the priority!
It is embarrassing and infuriating how the universities are reacting. This is an excellent time to discuss efficiency and redundancy, to decrease bureaucracy. We can’t service this level of federal debt forever and everyone must do their part. Take nothing for granted in this world-your job, your grant, your indirect costs. What people are upset about is the change. Adapt. We don’t even know how effective the NIH is at changing the needle on American health.
This is not a simple "we hate change" reaction. As long time (tenured for what it is worth) university professor, this is a "my God the grift, and thus my job, will go away" reaction. That is the panic. This overhead reliably goes to things that I 100% oppose -- even more administrators to do things that should not be done. I am thrilled they are finally going to cut it back/out. In the end, not only taxpayers but the schools themselves (if they are salvageable) will be better off.
You misunderstand that this is not a reaction of "oh my god, my job will go away". Faculty will still be able to direct charge their salary to grants. They won't have anyone to clean up their labs, or handle their administration (which is extensive and they are completely incapable of doing themselves), they won't have maintained lab space and equipment.
It's weird to me how many faculty and MDs I've seen (most in the minority, but still not non-zero), make these totally specious comments on things they don't know about or understand. As a group, you have expertise in one area that you're trained in, but have severe Dunning-Kruger in virtually all other aspects of life - you think you're an expert at everything and are unable to understand other things that fall outside your scope. So strange.
Sarah, All of those functions are in the DIRECT costs of my grants. That includes rent (even though it is university space), janitorial, utilities -- all directly costed. We also have direct costs for the staff involved in the (yes you are right, onerous) reporting. The overhead goes virtually entirely to hiring DEI and other unrelated-to-what-we-do administrative staff who, believe me, do not contribute to my research or the operation of my labs.
The only way those costs are considered direct is of you are "off-campus", and those rates are capped at 26%. If your university is charging those costs and you're on campus you are violating the code of federal regulations which dictates how to account for direct and indirect costs - because your institution would be double dipping. I know Washington State University and George Washington (I don't work at either but manage subs with them) pays rent off-campus for some of their programs, but they charge a 26% rate and build those "overhead costs" into their direct cost budget. As far as using indirects for DEI hiring I call BS, because I haven't seen a university in America that discloses what they spend their indirects on - it's conjecture on your part. I do know that they have real costs that they have to pay for, so that is more likely where the money is going to instead of some made up DEI thing. You do realize universities get money from other sources and pay for those initiatives out of other pots?
I have been running labs for decades. I have a pretty good idea how they work. Of course all funds are fungible so I cannot prove that my particular overhead went to a particular thing -- I am sure that is deliberate. All I know is that they go into central administration (sounds like that is where you live) and they pay for whatever appeals to them (among which is DEI). The administrative sinkhole (the admin staff at my school is now 5x larger than when I started -- the faculty is about the same as are the student counts) contribute little of value in most of our opinions. I am sure those who are there think they are doing a wonderful job, but not one of them would be missed if they all disappeared by those of us who actually see patients and do the research.
I don't live in central - I never have. I've only worked in departments and research centers directly with PIs. I assure you couldn't do high quality research without research administrators. At this point I've worked with hundreds of faculty internally and externally and a few things: 1.) none of you actually understand how indirects work, you all think you do, but its a multiplier that many seem to not be able to apply correctly to your budgets at the bare minimum, and you certainly have no idea what happens on the backend, or how they are calculated or negotiated 2.) you have no idea how much invisible work gets done on your behalf, and 3.) I DO think that central offices are not transparent (to their detriment) about how these funds are spent, AND they also hoard way too much of the recovery and do not share with the generating department - which is BS.
So congrats! You run a lab and provide direct patient care - that's great, but it doesn't make you an expert on indirects.
Is it possible you are running a lab funded by NSF? Or are doing physics or engineering? I recently learned that not all disciplines structure direct and indirect costs the same way. For example in physics and engineering rent, utilities etc are billed as direct costs. But for the NIH they are indirect. This is why NIH indirect costs seem so high - they pay for everything except salaries of the people named in the grant application and the materials listed. If you are an NIH funded researcher, then rent, utilities, insurance, IT, HR, HR legal, patent legal, security, janitorial, EH&S, BSL-3, facilities, shipping and receiving, equipment contracts, etc are all indirect costs. Further, they not fungible nor unaccountable. All institutions must report their indirect costs with receipts to the NIH. These accounts are routinely audited. Everyone on this thread including Vinay (except Sarah) seems to think indirect costs= administrative overhead. It does not. Administrative overhead (the part everyone says is bloated) is only a fraction of indirect costs. In the private sector, 15% for administrative overhead is fairly typical. If that were all that was at stake then yes this proposal would be reasonable. Instead this proposal cuts off the electricity, water, rent, security etc. Yes we have grants in hand with the funded direct costs. And there will be no means to implement them.
Excellent comment! Thank you for posting it.
100%! I worked in clinical research at a well-known tertiary medical institution in MN, & I support this message. Thank you, Dr Prasad, for saying what needed to be said. Hopefully, some of these universities will listen.
Another excellent article by Vinay! I wholeheartedly agree with everything he said here. I think the public is not only disgruntled with universities for their mismanagement of the COVID debacle but any person who has been following the crying over 60%+ indirects being cut to 15% has absolutely no sympathy for these universities who have been receiving ridiculously large amounts of money with no requirement for reporting how it was used. If universities accept 10-15% indirects from Bill Gates and Chan- Zuckerberg, then why should the US government pay any more than that?
Great post. Universities should be working to craft a compromise reform proposal. They know where the problems and waste are. Should be room for common ground to cut needless bureaucracy in grant submission, contracting, and reporting. The public is not going to sympathize with the position that wealthy universities cannot afford any cut in IDCs.
Love Vinay’s consistently sensible interventions. Today’s NYT Nick Kristof in the NYT presented his second column suggesting a sensible reading list for the left leaning liberal tribe. Last month he supported mandated drug treatment for some of the people some of the time. We need more sensible people willing to dialogue and offer solutions
"mandated drug treatment" shouldn't even be a consideration.
Whenever I discuss with outsiders, or even colleagues who are not grant-funded, the nearly 60% overhead at my university and many others, theya re stunned. I try to explain why some of this is justified. But I can't justify 60%, don't trykl and would not be believed if I did try.
What I'd like to know is wherther savings on overhead will mean less total rsarch funding, or more funding of the researchers. One can hope for the latter,. but that might be a futile hope.
Bernie Black (Northwestern)
Bernie, you do know that 60% at Northwestern isn't some arbitrary number right? That there is formula, that generally gets negotiated downward by the federal government, and includes an extensive space, equipment, and cost accounting inventory.
Is there no middle ground for any of you people? I am so, so, so tired of seeing your criticisms, not one of them constructive! Did you ever think that universities might be grappling with NIH funding as well as other issues without broadcasting every detail to you? Yes, there were mistakes during the Covid pandemic, but in my view while paying very close attention, they were made in good faith. I worked for half of my career in academic research and half in pharmaceutical. I firmly believe there is considerably more waste (and probably fraud) in industry.
Mistakes were not made in “good faith.” Moreover open debate of viewpoints was not permitted. And without this, we have no opportunity for a “middle ground.” While I respect your point of view, I have this one.
And you "know" this to be true? In retrospect, I think public health officials lost sight of "flattening the curve" intended to preserve the ability of hospitals to take care of the sickest patients. Yes, restrictions should have been lifted earlier. Anger and outrage don't serve any useful purpose. That's what you can get on Twitter (X). I thought Substack would be better.
Even the "flattening the curve" was a deceptive lie. Hospitals, like planes, are ALWAYS running at maximum capacity.
The way to "flatten the curve" is not decided by hospitals, that's silly, the way to "flatten the curve" was:
-Go outside
-Eat healthy
-Exercise 1 h every day
-Sleep 8h a night
-Increase Vit-D in northern latitudes (Canada is 30% vit-D deficient)
And for those unable to do those 4, governments should have subsidised THOSE activities, not the frikin Medical Industrial Complex!
Nope. It wasn't "good faith". The healthScare industry is entirely driven by for profit corporations, the Medical Industrial Complex, and the MIC owns government policy.
ALL policies during the Covid hysteria were PROFIT DRIVEN.
I stopped calling it "pandemic" a while back. I prefer to talk about the Covid Hysteria.
Hysteria is a proper word usage for the present day mindset by a certain majority of "scientists" who have convinced the world that "all preventable illnesses" (of course they're referring only to flu/cold/childhood illnesses, the new religion, and completely ignore all the lifestyle ailments the majority of society suffer from) must be "eradicated".
Philosophically, it's a terribly strange concept to want to "eradicate contagious illnesses".
The word pandemic is going to need an executive order in order to have any actual meaning.
Just like we needed two executive orders (Trump's + HHS, I know, not exactly EO, but similar) to reestablish that mammals have only two sexes, and those two sexes apply to 100% of mammals and 100% of humans.
The word pandemic is presently loosely defined as any virus that crosses a border. It's a silly definition. The word deserves a proper definition. It's needs a lethality function.
The Bubonic plague decimated 30% of Europeans.
Smallpox decimated 95% of the America's First Nations.
Those were pandemics.
SARS-CoV-2 killed less than 0.04% of humanity annually for two years, OF THE 0.8% who were going to die those years anyway.
Mathematically, just, meh.
Once you get rid of the hysteria, ALL the downstream hysterical policies cease to exist, for it is the hysteria, and the hysteria alone, that breaks people's brains.
YES! And…the other thing I’d like to see is all these fancy *world class* economics departments study immigration! Why do we have no idea how many is the right number at a time? And what is the balance of protectionism to importing new talent? And *who* fiscally makes sense? When I started digging for data there was so little and it was very dated. Notably it was before many of the more generous social welfare programs (in my blue state & blue city for example) there are a lot of programs, funding & vouchers people with no status (ie illegal) can & do receive.
The Left used to know that mass immigration increases the size of the labour pool, which causes salary stagnation. Sometime around 20 years ago, the Left died. Now it's just wokeism, I can't even call it Left anymore.
Best nugget in this treasure box of insights: 'Universities get public funding because they're supposed to allow the full breadth of public ideas and understanding...' What a hopeful, elevated idea. May it come to pass.
No NIH Funding: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/r9afeRCpFkaoY-lAxibm9A/projects
6th author on one pub: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37038261/
How to improve universities.
Cut enrolment by half
-3/4 of the cut should be "humanities" (so much stupidity undeserving of uni status)
-1/4 other areas, like "phys ed", "psychiatry", etc
But
+1/4 for basic nurses and a few doctors. (STOP stealing docs/nurses from other countries)
I couldn’t agree more with you vinay. Well said and well written. Unfortunately the universities and their fan base in the msm are a bunch of whiners.
I would love to debate you! The premise of this article doesn't really say much except universities need to host debates. Department chairs and whole universities aren't going to influence the reform that needs to happen at NIH by hosting debates.
The things that need to happen at NIH to reduce burden are largely related to things that faculty don't even deal with, not all, but a large number of things. I've worked in research administration for over 16 years and maybe we could reduce administration if faculty learned some things like what expanded authority means, or how to handle some simple tasks like no-cost-extensions (among others). Perhaps you are unaware that administration is capped at 26% within all rates (and has been since the 90's), when many institutions go far over that percentage. You are focusing on a negotiated percentage that has to be justified. It's math. And the government's stated goal in these negotiations is to "get good value for the American people." They don't just approve whatever.
Secondly, perhaps you should read up on the actual impact of indirect rates. Kelvin Droegemeier, PhD from the University of Oklahoma presented an entire analysis on this to congress in 2017: https://www.cogr.edu/sites/default/files/Droegemeier%20Full%20Written%20Testimony%20FINAL.pdf. He's not exactly some sort of academic, ivory tower hack. He left his job at UO and went on to serve in Trump 1.0 as a science policy advisor AFTER giving this testimony to congress.
I will say that many universities are not at all transparent with where these monies go - in most cases its not going to DEI programs, but it would be better if they would show how exactly the funds are directed. I'm so sorry but this is a very long article that isn't really serious about the issues.
Sorry but there is no possible way you can justify indirect costs in excess of 15% and no way you can justify different rates at different institutions.
Why not? Can you? I posted a 31 page testimony in a previous comment that explains how all this works and all you can come at me with is "there is no possible way you can justify indirect costs in excess of 15%?" Most private companies can't operate at 15%. Microsoft has a posted balance sheet floating around on the internet and their indirects are around 40%. What are you talking about?
You can convince yourself of anything but I’m afraid you’re talking out the back of your head and simply trying to justify the status quo which is wholly unjustifiable. As for indirect costs at Microsoft or for that matter apple what are you talking about. These companies are not funded by us taxpayers. Further Microsoft’s product is absolute garbage compared to apple. Maybe Microsoft need to waste less money on their own internal admin.
Okay great. You have nothing to actually add to the situation at hand. Have a great evening.
I'm not wasting time with people who a.) don't really understand the issue, and b.) can't be bothered to read and challenge their own assumptions and lack of knowledge.
You’re making a lot of assumptions there yourself regarding what I know and don’t know. It could be that I know a great deal more than you. You never know. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what you or I think. Rather it’s what the American public think. And when something smells like a fish it generally is a fish, in this case a boondoggle. If it weren’t the rate would be fixed and wouldn’t vary from institution to institution. You then say that training grants get only 8% in indirects. Well training grsnts could be administered by one person, two tops, and that doesn’t amount to an 8% overhead.
In any case, I’m afraid public opinion is overall really angry with the universities and they have what’s coming to them.
I DO THIS FOR MY JOB!! I'm not making assumptions. I actually know how all this works - you clearly do not. The American public doesn't get to arbitrarily make decisions about complicated things they don't understand or based on polling. They may not like it and think it's "outrageous", but that's not how/used to make policy in this country.
...And by the way. If you take the whole proportion of what NIH spends on indirects to direct costs, it's about 20% of the entire budget. Not all projects capture those high "research rates". Training grants get 8% for example. We also subcontract out things like equipment, subcontracts after the first $25k to get a modified direct cost total. Normalized it doesn't even end up being close to the full rate. Again, no one in this comments section, including the author understands how any of this works and you're all just blindly reacting to a rate which "seems ridiculous" to you.
If the Trump administration said let's have debates on NIH funding, everyone would agree. Instead they are slashing funding willy nilly. Think of how many important studies are in progress that are at risk of being eliminated. We are going to get a bunch of studies to pacify RFKJr. Studying vaccine side effects would not be high on my list when prioritizing limited funds, but I'm sure we'll waste a fortune on it.
What you stated is total and utter nonsense. It is indirect costs that are being cut not direct ones. So researchers will be unaffected but funding of humanities departments and dei initiatives with federal money will be hurt. And rightly so since one might ask what the exorbitant tuition fees are being used for. As for total nih funding this will remain the same which means that more not less r01 grants will be funded.
I wish that Vinay had given us references to posts revealing the attitudes of different universities. I otherwise wholeheartedly agree. My own medical school, the Baylor College of Medicine, seems to have expanded the number of VPs and new Faculty appointments, like dean of professionalism and dean for DEI. Medical students seem to be a very small part of the vision of this medical school. Research dollars are the priority!