8 ms·

$9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American, that is an ignorant amount of money for a single academic institut

• ceejayoz 2y ago
  > $9 billion dollars from the federal government to Harvard equates to nearly $30 per American… Now do what it gets them.
  • repeekad 2y ago
    given my comment got railroaded instantly, this is clearly what everyone thinks, but let's at least have that conversation rather than blindly pumping money into academia while local schools can't even afford books
    • ceejayoz 2y ago
      The people who want to hurt Harvard also want to hurt the local schools.
      • repeekad 2y ago
        this is identity politics, rather than discussing ideas we discuss whose ideas they are and whether we like that person, I don't like that kind of discourse and don't find it valuable, bad people can have good ideas and vice versa edit: that being said, I agree what's happening to harvard is in bad faith and has nothing to do with making the government more efficient, so my argument isn't good
        • TimorousBestie 2y ago
          It’s not identity politics to observe that the dilemma you presented (public funding for universities xor local schools) is false.
        • roughly 2y ago
          When the guy lifting your TV starts quoting Marx at you, it's not actually an invitation to engage in philosophical discourse, and no amount of sound economic reasoning is getting your TV back. The Trump administration is not, has not, and will not be arguing in good faith. Stop pretending we're working collaboratively towards a shared future - they're either stealing your television or stealing your neighbor's television, and attempts to interrogate the merits of their television relocation policy aren't shedding any actual light to the situation.
        • repeekad 2y ago
          @TimorousBestie (I can't reply inline due to comment depth) I didn't say fund harvard xor fund local schools, I said it's crazy how much money harvard gets. The comment I'm replying to is who implies I must support harvard funding xor I must support trump, "the people who want to hurt harvard", I don't think that's true. I'm allowed to think federal funds for academia are too high and also think Trump is bad for the country
          • matwood 2y ago
            > I said it's crazy how much money harvard gets A place that has all the facilities, faculty and pedigree to pull some of the best researchers from all over the world. It's in fact crazy that Harvard, or any R1 university, wouldn't get a large amount of research dollars from the federal government.
            • repeekad 2y ago
              Sure, but you can understand the perspective of someone growing up with zero access to those resources and lives in a rural part of the country hearing your argument and then voting for someone like trump, I would argue that sentiment is one of the forces driving regular people away from democrats and lost them the election in 2024, it is an "ivory tower" perspective and regular americans don't buy it (even if it's true that harvard is a great investment for public money)
              • matwood 2y ago
                I agree the democrats have terrible messaging, but what would really help 'regular' Americans is universal healthcare, free education, and maybe even UBI. As departments get DOGE'd a lot of 'regular' Americans are starting to find out where a lot of federal money goes, to those rural parts of the country. And let's be honest. The force 'driving people away from the democrats' is the propaganda network known as Fox News.
    • jdlshore 2y ago
      You seem to be missing the point that federal research grants are not gifts, but instead paying for a service.
    • neaden 2y ago
      We can have a discussion on if the money we spend is worth it sure. That's not what's happening now, Trumps not asking if this is the best way to fund research, he's demanding Harvard ban masks and punish students for engaging in political behavior he doesn't like. You're bringing up an entirely separate issue.
    • guax 2y ago
      No need for that. There is more than enough money being funnelled into defense to fund Harvard + everything else you can think of and still have the largest defense spending in the world. Arguing that Harvard gets too much while ignoring 99% of the budget is not a reasonable stance.
      • gadflyinyoureye 2y ago
        This is a logical fallacy of whataboutism. It is perfectly possible to say that the DOD gets too much money as does Harvard.
        • guax 2y ago
          I would agree if it was not a response to a similar argument about pumping money into alternative. So its consistent to that.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • linktraveler 2y ago
      even partially agreeing with anything the trump administration does on this forum makes you a target for downvotes. let me cred fall. idgaDANG
      • repeekad 2y ago
        you say as your comment about downvotes gets downvoted, echo chambers are dangerous to democracy imo
    • UncleMeat 2y ago
      Is there any evidence that we've been "blindly" pumping money into academia? Funding agencies are part of the federal budget and don't just get everything they ask for. Then those agencies have all sorts of review procedures for choosing grant awardees. There isn't just some big slush fund labeled "dumb science ideas" that everybody grabs from.
    • nineplay 2y ago
      I promise you right now that no one in the Trump administration is interested into providing more books to local schools. Quite the opposite
    • __loam 2y ago
      Massachusetts has some of the best public schools in the nation.
    • javiramos 2y ago
      I invite you to write or read a proposal for a multi $M grant before saying that money is being blindly pumped.
    • matwood 2y ago
      First, it's not blind. These big universities are where a ton of research happens. It makes sense that research dollars will end up there. Second, I agree that local schools (I guess you mean K-12?) should get more money. DOGE is busy cutting that also.
    • nathan_compton 2y ago
      If you are looking for someone to take this money and redirect it to local schools I have some bad news for you.
• thinkingtoilet 2y ago
  > that we can have a conversation about how much money is leaking out of our tax dollars Of course. It's clear you didn't read the letter because Harvard addresses this specifically. The Trump admin is literally refusing to have a conversation. This is 100% politically motivated and it's obvious to anyone who is not in the Trump cult. This is particularly disgusting because their doing it under the guise of 'antisemitism', while Trump keeps friends with known white supremacists.
  • repeekad 2y ago
    nope, just a random stranger trying to add some random noise into these often one sided conversations, I of course support public academic investment and Trump is bad for the country, but I worry we've fully mapped one to one trump and nazis, and it just doesn't resonate with me as much as it seems it does everyone else. I'm from small town America, I know that the federal government doesn't care about my hometown, so when I hear things like Harvard gets billions while already having tens of billions in endowment, it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't that money go to average americans, meanwhile here I am typing words into a screen connected to the internet so I fully acknowledge I've benefited from the institution
    • thinkingtoilet 2y ago
      Small towns overwhelmingly get more federal dollars than they put in. Big cities subsidize small towns. >it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't that money go to average americans Because Americans in small towns overwhelmingly vote for people who lower taxes for rich people and promise not reduce the scope of government. Instead of blaming Harvard, why don't you ask your neighbors why they like to vote for people who refuse to help them?
    • vel0city 2y ago
      > it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't that money go to average americans Are there world-class research facilities in your small town? Why would it be hard for you to see it makes sense for billions to be spent on research at world-class facilities with world-class scientists? FWIW, chances are whatever local state university nearby also receives quite a bit from federal grants as well. But it probably scales based on the research facilities and staff actually there. Do you think it would be better management of federal resources to instead spend the same amount at facilities that don't do nearly as impactful or nearly as much research? These are grants for specific research. Researchers put together proposals to study things, the federal government decides that's something worth looking into, and funding gets cut (simplified). Harvard has a lot of people doing pretty fancy research, so it makes sense they'd have a lot of grant proposals requiring fancy and expensive things. Complain to your state legislature for not focusing on making your local university a research university if you feel your area should be getting more of these grants. But let me guess, you probably voted for people who argued for lower taxes. Gee, I wonder what they found to cut... And FWIW the federal government spends a bunch on a lot of small-town America. FEMA grants for emergency preparedness comes to mind. A higher percentage of populations of small-town America live off federal aid programs. Small-town America also sees more of its school funding from federal sources and grants.
• MR_Bulldops 2y ago
  Let's have a conversation about leaking tax dollars. How do you feel about our tax dollars directly enriching the sitting president? How do you feel about our tax dollars leaking into a military parade to celebrate the president's birthday? If you don't address those leaks, how can we be expected to take people like you seriously when you defend authoritarian policy as fiscally responsible?
  • thecrumb 2y ago
    You forgot the cost of his golf excursions. (there are a surprising number of Trump golf trackers LOL) https://didtrumpgolftoday.com/ https://didtrumpgolftoday.com/ "Est. cost to taxpayers for golf since returning to office: $32,200,000"
    • repeekad 2y ago
      that's 10 cents per american (still crazy!), but not $30, and $30 is only for Harvard much less how much federal funds go to other schools Obviously I'd rather that 10 cents go to something productive, but on the national stage trump golfing feels like just a distraction from much more important topics
    • matwood 2y ago
      You also forgot the birthday military parade he wants that's been estimated to cost ~$100M.
    • __loam 2y ago
      And the salaries for DOGE employees that are higher than the highest pay band.
• oldprogrammer2 2y ago
  Yeah, his reasoning is suspect to a lot of folks, but I’m not sure why everyone is so comfortable with the consolidation of wealth at these elite institutions.
  • __loam 2y ago
    There's definitely a conversation we can have about the cost and accessibility of higher education in this country. I don't think that conversation should include an administration that is unilaterally and arbitrarily canceling international student visas, threatening to withhold research funding that was already allocated by congress, and turning back foreign scientists at the border for things they said in private conversation that the government only knows about after a warrantless search.
• ipaddr 2y ago
  If the entire budget was income taxes and everyone paid the same including babies then sure $30 dollars or it's 1/4 of the money the government gave to Musk over the last 20 years.
• plorg 2y ago
  I would absolutely love to see my federal tax dollars doled out to schools and institutions where they would more directly benefit a wider set of people. If that was what was under discussion it would be great. The administration isn't proposing to redirect that money, simply rescind it, and they are very, extremely clearly attempting to use this to coerce institutions and punish people for their speech and associations.
• allturtles 2y ago
  The dispute between Harvard and the Trump has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. You can read the government letter and see for yourself, none of it is about Harvard spending research money irresponsibly. It is an attempt to assert deep government control over the institution's policies and ideologies. So your comment reads as an attempt to distract from the real issues at hand, which I (and I think many others here) consider existential for the survival of the rule of law in the U.S.
  • DarkmSparks 2y ago
    Maybe. Not sure. More explicitly the letter demands that tenured professors be given more decision making power than non academic activists. The outright dismissal of the letter suggests that at least maybe non academic activists are calling the shots, and if that is true Harvard is destined to wither and die.
    • allturtles 2y ago
      > More explicitly the letter demands that tenured professors be given more decision making power than non academic activists. 1) Granting that giving more power to tenured professors would be a good thing, in what way is it legal, wise, or good for the executive branch to achieve this in the absence of any law by strong arming individual private institutions that it has decided to target on ad hoc basis? 2) You are reading selectively, it says "fostering clear lines of authority and accountability; empowering tenured professors and senior leadership, and, from among the tenured professoriate and senior leadership, exclusively those most devoted to the scholarly mission of the University and committed to the changes indicated in this letter" [emphasis mine]. So in other words, it is a requirement that the university give power to those ideologically-aligned with the Trump administration. This is a very clear and alarming violation of the first amendment. In toto, the letter is an attempt to impose ideological reform in a private institution, and is part of a wider attempt by the current administration to browbeat or subvert every institution that might act to curtail (or even speak out against) its actions.
      • DarkmSparks 2y ago
• throw__away7391 2y ago
  Maybe there’s a conversation to be had about that but this isn’t it, this is attempted coercion, and yes, it is fascism.
• thrance 2y ago
  Instead it will go straight to military contractors, yay!
• tacticalturtle 2y ago
  The 9 billion isn’t specifically just for Harvard “the university”. The lion’s share of it appears to be NIH programs for area hospitals - all of which are associated with Harvard. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-review-hospitals/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/funding-review-h... We all benefit from that research.