Did you know that, on average, 25% of the dollars the NIH spends on research goes not to the researchers but to the universities and are never audited?

The money goes into slush funds, some of which finds its way into research projects, but most of which evaporates into slush funds that pay for lavish travel, DEI bureaucracies, and God alone knows what else because there is zero accounting for it. It just disappears into the university. 

So, not only do grants go to things like studying cocaine in dogs and the sexual practices of rats doing date rape drugs, but you are paying for administrative fees as high as 60% on top of the original grant for the absurdities. 

Last year, $9B of the $35B that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted for research was used for administrative overhead, what is known as “indirect costs.” Today, NIH lowered the maximum indirect cost rate research institutions can charge the government to 15%, above… pic.twitter.com/FSUYpEGKsr

— NIH (@NIH) February 7, 2025

"Premier" research institutions get much more than the average 25%. Here in Minnesota, the University gets over 50%, Harvard over 60%. and similar numbers appear at all the "best" places. 

No wonder university administrations have exploded in size. 

The Trump NIH is slashing the rate to 15%--the same rate that all the major non-government granting institutions give to cover basic overhead like lights and broken equipment not accounted for in the original grant. Basically a contingency fund. 

Universities are going insane, claiming that they will have to shut down their research. 

Don't believe them. 

Vinay Prasad, a researcher himself, explains why the administrative fee cut will be a good thing in the long run:

I am a huge fan of basic scientific research, and believe the federal government should play a role in funding things that technology companies will not because the profit potential is too far off in the future or may never be realized directly. But funding science is a far different thing than funding universities, which are extremely wealthy institutions that are so far off from their original purpose that it might make sense (theoretically, not likely in reality) to scrap the system and start over. 

The NIH announced it will slash billions of dollars of support to universities and research centers.

This is one of the biggest attacks on science we have ever seen. It could dismantle the biomedical research system, shut down clinical trials, and halt development of treatments.

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) February 8, 2025

Many of these institutions just pile up enormous endowments, get enormous gifts to build research buildings and purchase equipment, and then charge the government ridiculous fees to use infrastructure that has been paid for many times over. 

Harvard has a $50 billion endowment, and charges the government a 69% administrative fee for NIH grants. And nobody can tell you where it goes. It is completely unauditable. 

That isn't money going to cancer research. It is going to a slush fund with zero accountability. 

Big Education is not a friend to the American taxpayer nor the economy.

We are subsidizing student loans as well as the defaulted loans AND covering the expenses.

It is no wonder that Big Ed is so sympathetic to the democrats, they are eating from the same trough the… pic.twitter.com/QPlyOMANwd

— Noah Fencebutt (@Noah_Fencebutt) February 10, 2025

This is no different than the scam uncovered at USAID. Taxpayers are told that we are feeding starving people--and indeed, about 10% of the money goes to that purpose--but the vast majority goes into an opaque NGO complex that uses USAID as a slush fund that eventually funds regime change at home and abroad, censorship organizations, the illegal alien human trafficking operation, BLM, the Soros prosecutors, and NGOs like the World Economic Forum. 

Institutions like Yale are now so bloated that there literally more administrators--not administrators plus professors, but just administrators alone--than students. 

It's not tuition and fees paying for that, even though those are outrageous and subsidized by the government as well, but administrative fees. 

Colleges and universities can afford to be so insane, bureaucratically bloated, expensive, and in many cases destructive because taxpayers pay for it all and nobody calls them to account. 

The system is broken and requires radical surgery. Many of the instruments will be blunt and cause real pain, just as orthopedic surgery is and does. Why my wife got a hip replacement a doctor went in with knives, saws, hammers and drills. It wasn't pretty, and some pain was involved. 

But now she can walk and is better than she has been in decades. 

The scientific research infrastructure of our country needs a similar treatment, or perhaps something akin to chemotherapy. It is sick, needs treatment, and when the cure comes it will be much better off. 

So ignore the screams. The patient will get better.