Press "Enter" to skip to content

Trump promises are a threat to UO’s finances

Diane Dietz in the RG:

The University of Oregon is awaiting the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the new year with a disconcerting level of uncertainty about his plans for federal funding of research.

The UO relies on about $100 million a year in federal grants out of $700 million in total annual revenues.

The money from federal agencies, including the U.S. departments of Education and Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation, mostly goes toward paying UO research staff members’ salaries.

Ed School funding is  particularly at risk. Maybe the Law School will bail them out?

There are also worries about one of the United States most profitable export industries – undergraduate degrees:

Universities across the United States fret about what Trump policies could mean to their efforts to recruit students from around the globe — particularly from China. Trump has repeatedly upset the Chinese government by calling for a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods and for speaking on the phone with the president of Taiwan, an apparent swipe at longstanding U.S. policy that does not recognize the island nation.

The biggest share of the UO’s 4,139 international students come from China. They’re important to the university’s financial health because they pay three times the tuition of Oregon residents — and so help to subsidize the education of local students.

The UO would have a lot to lose if China’s Ministry of Education blocked the United States as a study-abroad destination or if students decided that the United States was unfriendly and decided, for example, to study in Canada or Europe.

2 Comments

  1. honest Uncle Bernie 12/18/2016

    Hard to predict what will happen. People thought Reagan was going to be a disaster for “basic research,” to use a somewhat quaint term. Turned out those were actually good times.

    My guess: there will be a shift in research funding, not a cut. There may even be a boost if they really want to do that Make America Great Again thing.

    If your grant is in climate science or geosciences, you may have trouble. Climate science funding has had it very good for a long time. They may be in for some tough times.

    You know what though? If you can retread yourself even slightly as a bit of a “climate skeptic” you might be rolling in dough.

    Of course, academic researchers in the sciences have never gone in for fades, hype, or bandwagons.

    Right?

  2. Socially constructed science? 12/18/2016

    Right as one noaa program director admitted, of course climate science researchers Exaggerate,how else can they get attention and funding?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *