The funding cuts are deep; emerging research students are on the front line

Seventeen years ago, Laura Xie watched as her second-grade teacher poured water into a beaker. It’s a cup of water, she thought, big deal. Then the teacher poured oil into that same beaker, and little Xie sat in awe as the golden liquid rested perfectly on top of the water. Her teacher revealed that what seemed like a magic trick was actually the separation of compounds. It became Xie’s first memory of using science to understand the unfathomable.

“I thought that was the coolest thing ever,” says Xie, now 23, living in NYC and applying for her biomedical PhD.

After high school, Xie moved from her hometown of Allen, Texas, to Los Angeles to study biology and mathematics at UCLA. There, she was placed in an immunology lab that explored sex differences in the immune system. Enthralled by the topic, she decided to pursue her PhD to become an immunology professor.

But just as she’s about to fulfill this dream, PhD acceptance rates are dropping due to a series of unprecedented funding cuts. Now, the logic that once guided her passion has been replaced with a new level of uncertainty.

The Tipping Point

A week into his second term, the Trump administration broadly paused all federally assisted funding for programs that were deemed a waste of taxpayer dollars. Although this directive has since been rescinded, several federal agencies have pursued similar measures.

On Jan. 29, the National Science Foundation (NSF) froze payments on all existing grants. And on Feb. 7, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced “there will be a standard indirect rate of 15 percent across all NIH grants for indirect costs.”

Indirect costs are expenses that institutions can use to broadly support research. The money is invested in things like equipment, personnel, and maintenance. Under previous administrations, indirect costs were negotiable and have reached almost 70 percent for major research institutions. The 15 percent cap is therefore a drastic markdown from what universities typically rely on.

Lawsuits have limited the damage for now. The NIH and NSF have partially lifted their freeze on grant reviews, and the 15 percent cap has been put on a temporary preliminary injunction. But institutions still face immense funding uncertainty.

Lab managers, or Principal Investigators (PIs), have had to take precautionary measures that inevitably affect their students. As a result, early-career professionals are facing a more difficult entryway, and I spoke to three of them — Laura Xie, Charlotte Lee, and Savannah Miller. Each represents a different stage of becoming a professional researcher. All have been adversely impacted.

Laura Xie, prospective PhD student

Xie, who applied to five PhD programs, has received one acceptance, from the University of Chicago. Under normal circumstances, this would’ve marked the beginning of Xie’s PhD journey. It would’ve meant she could breathe after the most competitive application cycle she’ll likely ever encounter.

But with PIs scrambling to secure funding, Xie learned the hard way that this year an acceptance doesn’t necessarily guarantee lab placement.

A week before we met, Xie flew out to Hyde Park, Chicago, for admitted students day. She explored her likely new home, met fellow doctorates, and spoke with potential lab managers.

As exciting as it was to meet professionals in her field, it became increasingly clear just how deep these cuts really were.

Xie sat down with one of the biomedical PIs, ready to learn about a potential research lab. Instead, the instructor broke the news that working for her lab might not be possible.

“I have to be honest with you before you choose the program. I didn’t get my T32 [an NIH Institutional Training Grant],” said the PI, according to Xie. She explained that she wasn’t able to secure the funding because the grant review committee wasn’t allowed to meet to determine the fate of her project. “I don’t know if I have money to fund your PhD next year, so I don’t know if I would choose me as a lab.”

Xie appreciated the transparency, but she began to sense her dream unraveling.

“It feels like it’s getting taken away from you,” she said. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Because many projects rely on federal grants, PIs have had to adjust their labs accordingly. Xie ended her visit knowing she faces an already competitive application process with even fewer spots across programs and labs.

Charlotte Lee, PhD student at Columbia University

Charlotte Lee, 23, is a second-year PhD student studying mechanical engineering at Columbia. She got her bachelor’s from Cornell in mechanical engineering, too, because she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do and it seemed like a “catchall.” But through an orthopedic research study in undergrad, she learned to appreciate biology for its direct link to helping humans.

Lee chose Columbia because it offered a program that bridged these two interests—mechanical engineering and biology. More specifically, she works in a lab that conducts research for cervix changes during pregnancy. It was the first time she realized mechanical engineering could be used for women’s health research.

“Women’s health is so understudied, and there are very few labs that are looking at it from an engineering perspective,” said Lee. “I thought that would be a really cool way to use my skill sets to do something that I found meaningful.”

This time last year, Lee began spending more time in her south campus apartment, away from the noisy pro-Palestinian encampment on the main campus. But now that she’s done with required classes, she can prioritize her lab up in Washington Heights.

It’s a new year, she thought. She could focus on her studies.

Then, on March 7, she got a message from her lab mate.

“Hey, remember how Trump said he was gonna cut $400 million from Columbia? My grant was just canceled.”

The administration had announced the termination of Columbia’s federal grants and contracts, more than half of them coming from the NIH.

This lab mate had one semester left of her PhD. She’s able to complete her degree only because their lab instructor scraped together reservoir funds to use toward her salary.

“It’s upsetting to see what’s happening on a federal level, and how punishing Columbia for the protests on campus actually just meant punishing the low-key, already underpaid PhD students,” said Lee.

In addition to paying her lab mate’s salary, the NIH and NSF mainly fund the lab itself. Since both agencies have frozen grants, Lee’s PI has been looking into private companies that could utilize their research. But in order to secure private funding, she needs to demonstrate that the research can help them.

So, Lee’s been pulled onto tasks outside her PhD, like putting together presentations for her PI to show these private sources of funding.

“I feel like it has given me less time to devote to the work that I want to be doing and the work for my thesis,” said Lee.

The work she should be prioritizing involves visiting hospitals, going into the OR during surgery and collecting cervix tissue from hysterectomies. From that, her team can then study how cervix exposure affects its stiffness, since preterm birth happens when the cervix softens too early in pregnancy.

But between pitching to private companies, taking on extra work, and covering those meager PhD salaries, her lab has been stretched thin. This is detrimental, Lee explained, not just on a research level, but a public health level.

“Things that trickle down to public health are usually years behind where the research is now, because there’s a whole testing, clinical trial, FDA approval system that has to occur before these sorts of things actually end up being implemented.”

For her field of work specifically, delayed research will exacerbate premature births, pregnancy complications, and infertility.

“These issues already exist. It means we’re not going to have answers sooner, and that’s so unfortunate, because women’s health research is already so far behind other areas,” said Lee.

Savannah Miller, recipient of federal funding

I met Savannah Miller, 26, at the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington Square Park on March 7. She wore an “I am a force for science” baseball hat and held a “Powered by science, strengthened by diversity” cardboard sign.

Miller was raised by two scientists. Her mother, a marine mammal veterinarian, would take her along to labs, fisheries, and coastal surveys. Her father, an astrophysicist, would prop her in front of giant telescopes to see moon craters. “I always joke that my mom does work under water, my dad does work in the sky, and I landed right in the middle, working with humans,” she said.

Miller is a research coordinator at Emory-Einstein Tuberculosis research group. She studies antibiotic resistance so humans can be treated for tuberculosis, the most deadly infectious disease.

How she got there, though, was years of federally funded opportunities to grow her qualifications and genuine interest.

At the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Miller applied for an undergraduate fellowship program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She received a two-year tuition stipend and spent a summer working with the Sitka tribe of Alaska, testing shellfish for toxins before they were available to harvest.

“It helped me pay for college and gave me great research experience,” she told me. “That’s really what set me in motion to pursue public health in a research context.”

After graduating, Miller applied to the NIH Postbac program, which is a way for aspiring graduate students to gain more research opportunities before applying. She ended up going straight into a public health master’s at Emory University, but even there the research she participated in was government-funded. Now, the salary for her current role as a research coordinator is entirely funded by the NIH.

Every step of Miller’s career has been influenced by the government. These federally funded programs helped inform her passion for public health and have led to her next endeavor as an incoming Stanford medical student.

“My whole trajectory has been government-supported,” she said. “Now a lot of those things are being taken away from young professionals.”

An ongoing battle

On April 4, a judge from the District Court of Massachusetts converted the temporary preliminary injunction into a permanent one, barring the NIH from going through with the 15 percent cap. On the surface, this is a win for research institutions. The negotiation process may be restored and they can resume projects that have been put on hold.

The catch? The NIH had submitted a request for the final judgment earlier that day, urging the Massachusetts judge to come to a decision with the intention of starting an appeal.

In other words, litigation is likely to continue despite the ruling, and research institutions will continue to sacrifice certain areas of funding.

“If, knock on wood”—Xie knocks on the table in front of her—“and I couldn’t start my PhD this year, I would hope to be a research tech, maybe in a private lab, and just keep applying.”

For emerging research professionals like Xie, careers remain on the front line. Xie knocks on wood again; I join her.