From the link you shared, I assume the relevant chart is the one on page 14, showing the growth of university research expenditures. What I couldn't find in the

From the link you shared, I assume the relevant chart is the one on page 14, showing the growth of university research expenditures. What I couldn't find in the text (maybe I missed it) is the source of those funds; I think that most of it is paid not by universities, but by the federal government through various agencies. Like another commenter said, the university also receives money from research grants (as overhead), they don't have to pay anything except maybe the professors' salaries. A growth in "Research Expenditures" doesn't necessarily mean that universities are spending more money on research. As an anecdote, here's my personal example. As a PhD student in CS at a public US university, my experience has been this: all our equipment (mostly computers, CS is relatively cheap) has been paid from grants, and I have been funded from 3 sources: a 1-year federal fellowship (FAFSA), 1 year as a TA (that one was funded by the university, but in exchange for teaching) and the rest on a federal research project. Now, it is possible that richer private universities do pay for their own equipment and researchers. I don't have any numbers for that, though.