"All research institutions get additional money tacked on to federal science and medical grants to help pay for general overhead. But federal rules allow instit

"All research institutions get additional money tacked on to federal science and medical grants to help pay for general overhead. But federal rules allow institutions to deposit those payments into their general budgets, with no requirement they be used to directly support scientific endeavors." "Universities and the federal government became partners in research after World War II. MIT was one of the biggest beneficiaries. The National Institutes of Health initially set the overhead reimbursement rate at 8 percent and it eventually rose to 20 percent for all universities. In 1965, Congress permitted schools to directly negotiate their rates with the federal government, setting ballooning rates on their course." https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-and-other-research-schools-thwart-obama-administration-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Nk5PT0Mc8MQZihFVNs5gNK/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-m... You are probably right that much of the money may technically not be part of the endowment but I'm not sure that the technicalities of what constitutes an endowment is very useful if they are still the main funder of the university. If universities include up to 90% "overhead" that can be deposited into their general budgets with no requirement that it supports scientific endeavors then what do we really mean when we say the DoE / DoD don't contribute to the endowment? We mean they weren't "donations" basically? The article wasn't really about donations / endowment so other than using a slightly wrong word its not really relevant to the discussion anyway. Furthermore more than half of MIT's R&D funds come from the government so this isn't exactly an edge case. Its the rule not the exception.