Georgia Tech Is Teaching Other Universities a Fundraising Lesson (msn.com) 41
Universities facing federal research budget cuts are increasingly turning to corporate partnerships for funding as Georgia Tech secures $70 million from industry this fiscal year -- 28% more than last year and representing 15% of campus research funding versus the 6% national average. The Atlanta school's corporate engagement office has fielded multiple weekly calls from other institutions seeking guidance after securing deals including Hyundai's $55 million stadium naming rights agreement alongside undisclosed research investments in electric vehicle and hydrogen fuel technologies.
The arrangements come with restrictions: nondisclosure agreements limit publication options for graduate students, and companies typically avoid funding basic research without immediate commercial applications. Federal grants still constitute over half of university research spending nationally, supporting early-stage discovery work that laid groundwork for current quantum computing developments.
The arrangements come with restrictions: nondisclosure agreements limit publication options for graduate students, and companies typically avoid funding basic research without immediate commercial applications. Federal grants still constitute over half of university research spending nationally, supporting early-stage discovery work that laid groundwork for current quantum computing developments.
So, instead of free academia (Score:1)
You get another class of corporate slaves. Neat.
Educators hate this one weird trick! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you saying they are the same? Federal grants publish their guidelines and are defined by laws. Are the corporations required to do the same?
Award Conditions and Information for NIH Grants [nih.gov]
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You can say "this was all according to law" in the sense that no law was technically broken, but that only means the laws are meaningless if they don't restrict the current administration from doi
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I'll ask again: are Federal grants the same as corporate grants? Do they carry the same rules and expectations? The answer is no.
To your second sentence I agree with you but that's the failure of Congress (specifically Republicans in Congress) to care about their own Constitutional power over Federal dollars. I would say what Trump is doing is clearly illegal impoundment but if the majority in the House and Senate don't care, we elected brazen lawbreakers.
The institutions are not self-enforcing.
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Very often this was based on nothing more than a naughty word like "equity" being in the title of the proposal.
You can say "this was all according to law" in the sense that no law was technically broken, but that only means the laws are meaningless if they don't restrict the current administration from doing whatever it wants at any time.
SCOTUS upheld the rules out of the Trump administration to withhold funds where "equity" was part of the proposal. SCOTUS considers any discrimination based on race or sex as unconstitutional, including "equity" and "reverse discrimination" in any application for federal funds.
A search of the web with "equity scotus" as the search prompt got a number of results on how removing of the funds by the administration was not only legal but it would be unconstitutional to continue providing funds. This was a 5-4
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https://www.reuters.com/legal/... [reuters.com]
They just said, 'the new administration doesn't like your politics so we're cancelling your cancer research.'
Again, if there are any laws regarding how government research funding is disbursed, they are toothless if an administration can interpret them this broadly.
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The article you linked to pointed to Harvard being accused of protecting antisemitic policies. Also in the article was a claim that the accusations of antisemitism was not connected to the research, which is kind of hard to believe. Dollars are fungible, if Harvard is in any way protecting people that discriminate based on race, sex, religion, or other protected classes, then that should be cause to pull funds regardless of where they were intended to end up in the university.
If the White House is barred
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The self-righteous twist at the end of your post makes me feel like you're trying to bait me into saying something 'anti-semitic,' which I won't. In fact I'm sure I would disagree with quite a few statements made at a pro-Palestine rally. Still, the matter of how much Universities are legally
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Nothing you alleged was ruled against Harvard by a court or jury.
Then you have not been paying attention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There's more than that case against Harvard on their unconstitutional admissions policies, but that's one that comes to mind that SCOTUS ruled on.
But since Trump was enabled to institute the punishment first and let the justice system fight it out later (or not), there will be no due process.
Harvard got caught enforcing policies found to be discriminating on race, religion, ethnicity, sex, and likely more I'm forgetting. The courts ruled that this was not constitutional in 2023. Trump decided to put Harvard in a kind of "penalty box" for this in 2025. It appears to me that Har
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SCOTUS upheld the rules out of the Trump administration to withhold funds where "equity" was part of the proposal. SCOTUS considers any discrimination based on race or sex as unconstitutional, including "equity" and "reverse discrimination" in any application for federal funds.
Trump and the Supreme Court have ostensibly ruled against discrimination but in reality they have only ruled against reverse discrimination. Isn't is striking how forward discrimination has completely disappeared, which must be why the Trump administration is only targeting reverse discrimination. Trump and the Supreme Court have pulled a tremendous gaslighting trick on the American people. Discrimination only exists against people that are already demonstrably far better off.
Re: Educators hate this one weird trick! (Score:2)
On one hand you're correct that Cheeto Mussolini's actions are disruptive. On the other, we have all so far been notified about those actions. Corporations aren't required to update us internally as they go, only during periodic required filings.
Some of us see it as Valuable (Score:2)
When a giant corporation gives a public university millions of dollars, they expect it to earn every penny.
Absolutely which is why most money we get coming in where I work is from companies whose business is reliant not only relies on the research they help to support but also on having a supply of trained graduate students whom they can recruit. Those of us working on more fundamental research generally find it hard to impossible to attract industry funding because what we do is only tangentially relevant to them.
I've never seen a case where industry funds have acted against academic interests, it is more t
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Lucky. I was in two separate labs where multiple grad students discovered that their theses were unpublishable because their "corporate partner" decided they were trade secrets. One was after the student defended and the company sued him.
Also, I did academic reseach partnered with pharma. Not all pharma is bad, some groups took bad news with "well, we wish it would have come out differently." Others with "none of this happened,
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I'm actually quite surprised that your university does not have policies that allow for justifiable
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If it's done properly, everyone is prepared, and the university administration is prepared to forgoe funding in order to enforce those agreements, sure.
The fact is, industry incentives are often opposed to academic interests. Not diametrically opposed, so cooperation is possible, but it's not just a matter of "oh, I've never seen a problem, it'll be fine."
Engineering departments often have a lot of experience in this area so they're usually ahead. The article's examples are the engineering department at a t
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How would money put into a university not advance the cause of education?
I'll take a stab at how it might work. I grew up in the Midwest USA and that means a lot of farmers. Farmers like to watch college sports. A company producing seed corn, combine harvesters, pesticides, herbicides, or whatever a farmer might buy to make a living, will want those eyeballs. So the company puts a bunch of money into the university to get a good football team, a good basketball team, a nice stadium, TV broadcasts, and s
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Education is not the point of academia. Education is only one facet of the advancement of arts and sciences.
Big whoop. (Score:4, Informative)
This might keep the lights on for a little while, but greatly undermines the research mission of institutions, which should be about advancing science and promoting public benefit and good.
Re:Big whoop. (Score:5, Informative)
This destruction of Federal research and funding across the board I predict is going to be delayed but have a very negative effect on the nation as the years go on. A lot of institutional knowledge and directives are simply going to fall apart.
We're supposed to be concerned with China and they are putting more and more into research directives and in response we have decided to do less because of political ideology, because political actors need to control facts and demand loyalty above results.
Re:Big whoop. (Score:4, Informative)
It will take multiple administrations to undo all this damage too (assuming we even get that kind of leadership). These programs are losing all their talent, it will take quite a few years to rebuild that even if / when the money comes back.
Thanks for handing what was left of our technology lead to China, Trump!
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This destruction of Federal research and funding across the board I predict is going to be delayed but have a very negative effect on the nation as the years go on. A lot of institutional knowledge and directives are simply going to fall apart.
I doubt it. A lot of corporations have been getting a "free ride" because the government was providing funds for universities, meaning they got the educated workforce while the taxpayer funded it. If Hyundai wants engineers to develop the next generation of electric vehicle technology then they will have to pay for it than rely on funds from the Department of Energy, Commerce, or Education to pay for it. If Hyundai wants "green" hydrogen then they can fund it than expect the taxpayer to carry that burden
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government was providing funds for universities, meaning they got the educated workforce while the taxpayer funded it.
This is a clownshoes way to view the great American economy. If those people become educated and create new products that adds to the collective economy.
This libertarian pipe dream of "oh the markets and needs of society will always naturally align" just is not true and never has been true.
doubt the corporations that rely on new university graduates to make money to just let the universities die because the federal government pulled back on funds.
This is a strawman, nobody said "let them die" but there is a shitload of base level research that is publicly funded that leads to businesses started around it. You are revealing how little you know how this works no m
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The Trump admin does not care "is this research worth pursuing or not" they are concerned with "does this match our ideology" and "are these universities loyal enough to the admin"
I'm sure that Trump supporters could argue this is a far simpler matter of cutting back federal spending. I have my own theories on what's going on but I'll keep them to myself for now. My larger point is that with reduced funds to universities from the federal government we have less influence on American education from politicians on what is taught. Government funds have strings attached, just like corporate funds have strings attached. I don't want education based off which political party got the mo
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I knew you couldn't help yourself. Good luck with all that.
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You act like this is a private conversation. I'm addressing not just you but anyone that happens along to read this thread. If this were a private conversation then I'd have responded differently.
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Maybe they will go to other countries for an educated workforce but there's benefits to seeking American workers beyond just government subsidized education. At a minimum staying in the USA means a larger population to draw from without the bother of convincing people to immigrate, and all the costs that come with that.
The US does not have a larger population. China graduates four times as many students in STEM. It's much easier for them to simply open another office in China than to fund US universities. And frankly, if you're talking about Hyundai, they would much sooner fund Korean universities.
Join ROTC, enlist and get the GI Bill, or some other military service program to pay for a university degree.
Ah yes, just put your life on the line to sustain those forever wars. That's all you need to do to receive what should be a basic human right.
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The US does not have a larger population.
The USA ranks third in population so for all but two nations, and all but just shy of 2/3rds of the global population, the USA has the larger population to draw from for potential employees.
China graduates four times as many students in STEM.
But how good are they? As the saying goes, quantity has a quality all its own, but when seeking employees there's likely a desire to seek people that have a high quality education. As well as have a much lower probability to participate in industrial espionage and share trade secrets with the CCP.
It's much easier for them to simply open another office in China than to fund US universities.
Maybe that was true in
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This might keep the lights on for a little while, but greatly undermines the research mission of institutions, which should be about advancing science and promoting public benefit and good.
As if corporate funds don't promote public benefit.
Hyundai was mentioned as sinking funds into Georgia Tech. This was in part to fund electric vehicles and hydrogen as a "green" fuel. Are you opposed to electric vehicles? I like electric vehicles. Not exactly a fan of hydrogen as a fuel as I believe that a dead end, but maybe they find something we don't know that can change things.
When people think of "public good" then a common example is medicine. Okay, let's consider the benefits of advancing medic
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I'm not believing that private funds for education is undermining science and the public good
Your Viagra example is spot-on. Pharmaceutical companies saw a huge (pun intended) market of rich guys who would pay big $$ for this, and smelled easy profit. Sure, sexual health is important problem. But because of the profit potential, it gets more attention than other drugs (such as a malaria vaccine) that would do much more public good but generate much less profit.
There is also good evidence that "industry sponsored research is more likely to lead to favorable results for the sponsor's products" (htt
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If university researchers are forced to essentially become industry researchers, then what happens to independence and accountability and integrity in research? All gone.
That's only true if somehow this pushes out all funding from those motivated by something other than profit.
If you want to use malaria as an example then a quick search of the web will show all kinds of private funds for funding this. I see universities funding this themselves, no doubt from skimming off government and corporate funds but it's still funds that could have gone to some profit seeking effort than for seeking concerned scientists and physicians. I see programs from state funded programs, the
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Use your imagination based on what are some contentious topics lately
Cancer is "contentious"? That's the topic that many of the Trump administration's research cuts have focused on.
The problem is the scale and scope. Sure, there are a few philanthropic organizations out there, such as Bill Gates' foundation (which, by the way, he is winding down). But philanthropic research funded by these groups is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what Uncle Sam has offered to support research. NIH and NSF are (were) the biggest research funders in the world, driving innovation and d