Public colleges have most to lose in federal funding cuts

By Todd L. Pittinsky / For The Conversation

Most of the media coverage of the federal government’s recent cuts in federal research money for universities has focused on its effects on a handful of elite Ivy League universities, such as Harvard, Columbia and Cornell.

“When you take money away from a Columbia or a Harvard or other institutions, you’ve just taken away funds from the best researchers,” Toby Smith, the senior vice president for government relations at the Association of American Universities, told CNN in April.

But these schools account for only a small fraction of the nation’s scientific output that federal research money helps generate.

In my view, too many policy discussions and debates obsess over what happens on the campuses of elite colleges. Meanwhile, public universities quietly power the nation’s research engine.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-public-colleges-have-most-to-lose-in-federal-funding-cuts/