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Leading Research Universities Report, July 15, 2024

Image of the NIH buildingBarbara’s Blog: Investments in Federal Healthcare Research Pay Off

Last week, AAU President Barbara R. Snyder published a blog post on why Congress should fund the National Institutes of Health and the life-saving research it supports.

In the blog, she shared examples illustrating how the world is significantly better off because of the health and medical research conducted and supported by the NIH – including early-stage exploratory research that does not yet have any commercial applications and research that “no other organization has the capacity or will to do.” It was the NIH, for example, that decades ago funded research into the mRNA technology that eventually ended up giving the world the COVID-19 vaccine, and it was the NIH that supported the long-range Framingham Heart Study that showed us the connection between high cholesterol and heart disease. She also used data from United for Medical Research to show how the NIH supports the United States’ economy, especially in rural states.

She emphasized that cutting the NIH’s budget now, or even leaving it flat, would “seriously endanger medical research” because “every year, inflation cuts into the amount that NIH can use to fund research and clinical drug trials.” With funding cuts or flat funding, the agency will have to make difficult choices that could make us worse off as a nation. “Particularly as America’s population ages and new global pandemics threaten, it would be unwise at best to cut some of the most valuable life-saving research that the federal government supports,” she wrote.

ICYMI: Budget Cuts to Science Programs Are Threatening Our Global Leadership


students walking down a hallwayAAU Opposes Bills Advancing Punitive Tax Policies for Universities

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee voted along party lines to move forward with two bills that advance punitive tax measures on universities in the guise of protecting students’ civil rights.

The University Accountability Act (H.R. 8914) would impose a tax penalty on universities found by a federal court to be in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects students from discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. The Protecting American Students Act (H.R. 8913) would expand the number of universities subject to an excise tax on investment income generated from charitable contributions to endowments also known as the “endowment tax.” It would do so by excluding students who are neither United States citizens nor permanent residents from being counted as part of the student body for the purpose of determining which universities’ endowments get taxed. According to the committee, the bill is intended to incentivize universities to “enroll more American students.” AAU joined the American Council on Education and four other associations in sending a letter last week to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-MA) expressing serious concerns about the two bills.

The associations argued in the letter that the University Accountability Act would harm universities’ ability to protect both students and free speech by undermining the current Title VI enforcement framework centered at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education. “The numerous Title VI investigations launched by OCR against institutions since Oct. 7, and recent resolution agreements between OCR and investigated institutions, underscore the extensive power and authority of the federal government to intervene and mandate changes to campus policies and operations,” the letter noted. But the proposed legislation, the associations argued, would “drain institutional resources away from a focus on effective compliance with Title VI, while doing little to protect students against hate-based discrimination.”

The letter also contended that the Protecting American Students Act would make the “bad and misguided policy” of imposing an endowment tax on certain institutions even worse. The endowment tax, the letter noted, undermines “the teaching and research mission of the affected institutions without doing anything to lower the cost of college, enhance access, or address student indebtedness.” The Protecting American Students Act, the letter noted, “would exacerbate the damage resulting from the current policy by extending the tax to additional institutions.”>

AAU will continue tracking the bills, which now head to the House floor for a vote.

ICYMI: Correcting Fundamental Misunderstandings of College Endowments


image of FASFA formsAAU, Associations Express Support for FAFSA Deadline Act

AAU joined the American Council on Education and three other higher education organizations in sending a letter to House Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) in support of the bipartisan FAFSA Deadline Act (H.R. 8932). The committee voted 34-6 last week to advance the bill.

As the letter explained, the FAFSA Deadline Act “would move up the statutory date for the annual release of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) from Jan. 1 to Oct. 1.” The letter noted that moving the date up “would ensure that students have ample time to complete the form; give college access organizations and counselors time to support student completion; and allow institutions to process aid awards in time for students to make the best college decisions.” The associations wrote that the change “is a priority of the higher education community.”


Image of visa cardAAU, Associations Ask State Department to Address Visa Processing Delays

Last week, AAU, the American Council on Education, and 18 other higher education associations sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting that the State Department “address delays with processing F-1 and J-1 visa applications at U.S. consulates in India, as well as other countries where we may see a surge in applications.”

The letter expressed concerns about “reports of students [in India] receiving dates for interviews 100-200 days into the future, which will cause them to miss the start of their academic programs in the fall.” (According to Inside Higher Ed, India is now “the fastest-growing origin country for international students” in the United States.) The letter urged the State Department to “prioritize student visa processing during the summer months” and requested “a briefing and additional information about how the embassies are planning to address the surge in applications this summer.”


Global Research-Intensive Universities Issue Joint Call for Collaboration on Shared Challenges

AAU joined the German U15Group of Eight (Australia)League of European Research Universities (LERU)RU11 (Japan)Russell Group (UK), and the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities in issuing a joint statement earlier this month reaffirming the roles and responsibilities of research-intensive universities and issuing a call for collaboration to solve global challenges. The associations all belong to the Global Research-Intensive Universities Network (GRIUN). AAU President Barbara R. Snyder attended the network’s recent meeting in Berlin, where association leaders drafted the statement based on the discussions they had with one another.

The statement noted the critical role research-intensive universities play in responding to global challenges. “We have stood the test of time – with roots stretching back, in some cases, centuries – by serving and supporting our societies through times of conflict, challenge, pandemics, and revolutionary new ideas,” the statement noted, adding: “We have done this by standing fast to the principles of free and open inquiry: advancing and disseminating knowledge, testing ‘known’ ideas, and undertaking rigorous, evidence-based research.”

It also reaffirmed research-intensive universities’ core values, including “providing outstanding education;” conducting research that leads to innovation and progress as well as curiosity-driven research that builds “resilience against unknown challenges;” fostering “excellence through global talent mobility;” and creating “global networks through international collaboration.” The statement called upon governments and partners worldwide to work with research-intensive universities to “realize the full potential of the distinctive research, innovation, and partnerships” they offer.


News of Interest
 

AxiosJohns Hopkins Med School Will Be Free for Most After $1 Billion Donation – A $1 billion donation from former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg will help “cover the full cost of tuition for medical students from families earning less than $300,000” at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine starting this fall. In a letter, Bloomberg said that the gift will help tackle the “twin challenges of declining levels of health and education.”

Science|BusinessWhite House Revamps Guidelines for Research Security at Top Universities – Last week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released guidelines to strengthen research security at U.S. universities and to prevent “sensitive U.S. research leaking to China, Russia or others.” AAU Senior Vice President for Government Relations and Public Policy Toby Smith said that many AAU institutions “have already taken steps to address these research security concerns” and that the impact of the guidelines will be determined by how individual federal agencies implement them. “If different agencies do different things, that will make it harder to comply and increase costs,” he said.

ScienceSupreme Court Ruling May Threaten Role of Science in U.S. Rulemaking – The Supreme Court ruled last month that courts no longer need to defer to the scientific expertise of federal agencies when interpreting ambiguities in statutory law. American Association for the Advancement of Science CEO Sudip Parikh said that the ruling “fundamentally changes the way scientific information is used in federal policymaking.”

Higher Ed DiveOne-Third of U.S. Adults Have Little to No Confidence in Higher Education, Poll Finds – New research from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation finds that nearly a third of U.S. adults (32%) now say they have “very little or no confidence in higher education” – up from nearly a quarter of respondents who said the same last year. The study also found that 36% of adults have “strong confidence in higher education” (same as last year) and that 32% of adults only have “some confidence in higher education” (compared to 40% last year). According to Gallup, partisan differences are the driving force behind the continued decline in confidence; half of Republicans said in the latest poll that “they have little or no confidence in higher education, compared with just 11% who said the same in 2015.”

The Washington PostMany Universities Are Abandoning Race-Conscious Scholarships Worth Millions – In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s race in making admissions decisions, many universities from across the country “have paused, ended or reconfigured hundreds of race-conscious scholarships worth millions of dollars to comply with the ruling.” Conservatives say “race-conscious scholarships and grants disadvantage White students,” while higher education experts worry that ending race-conscious scholarships will negatively affect diversity in higher education.

ForbesNSF Making Huge Investment in New Computing Center Led by University of Texas – The National Science Foundation is investing $457 million to build a Leadership-Class Computing Facility at the University of Texas at Austin. The facility “is expected to revolutionize computational research across multiple subjects in science and engineering.” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said that the “facility will provide the computational resources necessary to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time, enabling researchers to push the boundaries of what is possible.”


Featured Research
 

Aerial image of a suburban neighborhood


Study Finds U.S. Does Not Have Housing Shortage, But Shortage of Affordable Housing

New research from the University of Kansas counters the idea that the United States is experiencing a housing shortage. Researchers examined 20 years of Census Bureau data to “compare the number of households formed to the number of housing units added” and found that “most of the nation’s markets have ample housing in total, but nearly all lack enough units affordable to very low-income households.”

image of a thermometer being held outside in a urban area


For Many Urban Residents, It’s Even Hotter Than Their Weather App Says

Environmental engineers at Duke University have published new research showing that popular weather apps often underestimate how hot “urban heat islands” can get during high temperature days. The apps rely on official government data as well as private weather stations across the nation to produce weather reports. But the researchers found that poorer, hotter neighborhoods have fewer weather stations and that temperatures in these areas often exceed what is reported by the apps.


From Our Feeds

 

Linkedin post from Pamela Davidson

Last month, the Student Aid Alliance held a reception on Capitol Hill to celebrate student aid programs in the Higher Education Act of 1965, including Pell Grants and the Federal Work-Study Program, and all the benefits they provide to current and former students. The Student Aid Alliance is a coalition of more than 40 higher education organizations advocating for federal investments in student aid. AAU is a proud member of the Student Aid Alliance steering committee and co-sponsored the reception.