Snuffing Science Education

Scientific education is teetering on a cliff. Unfortunately, the unknown that researchers and academics alike risk diving into has life-threatening implications for humanity. According to the Associated Press this August, the Supreme Court has enabled the Trump administration to cut around $783 million in research funding. This has and will continue to irreversibly set the scientific community back years, if not decades. The ruling is a minute but impactful step in the administration’s $12 billion cut in research project grants for the National Institute of Health (NIH). It mainly targets projects focused on better understanding racial inequalities in healthcare—getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—and aims to take charge of nationally ranked universities and their science programs. Once beacons of innovation, these schools are forced into making an impossible decision: they can stand up against an authoritarian government and risk losing invaluable scientific data and progress, or they can make concessions such as the disclosure of admissions’ data metrics to keep funding. Quintessentially, the extreme right-wing has weaponized countless lives in a political battle to snuff out any spark of liberal democratic academia or objective, fact-based truth. 

Superficially, the reasons behind the executive order to close the Department of Education in March 2025 seem believable. The order cites record-low reading and math proficiency scores, concluding that cuts would save families from funding and participating in a failing, federal education system. However, such a policy will only cause such scores to plummet even lower, especially in regions with schools eligible for Title I grants. Students will also lose access to school lunch, after-school enrichment programs, and loans for college. For the sake of current and future generations, the American electorate needs to realize that this is exactly what the right-wing wants—and therefore exactly what we should fight to avoid. To the Trump administration, as long as those who have historically enjoyed higher education, tax benefits, and racial privilege are taken care of, the rest of the country does not matter. This is precisely in line with their mission to get rid of “discriminatory, radical, and wasteful” DEI programs. Getting rid of funding will rid many of economic, medical, and political autonomy, and only sets a foreboding tone for the loss of our democracy.

Recent attempts to purge the country of science seem severe, but they are not unprecedented. The first Trump administration proposed budget cuts to reduce Environmental Protection Agency funding by $129 million, NIH funding by $4.2 billion, and National Science Foundation funding by $776 million, amongst others. Although they were not entirely successful in 2016, Republicans have gained the political capital from state and national voter bases in Trump’s second term to slash scientific funding through the federal government. Much of this comes as a result of pseudoscientific theories surrounding COVID vaccines as well as constantly changing information from scientific officials during the pandemic that instilled public distrust in the scientific community. The federal government subsequently deprioritized scientific education, resulting in less funding for providing grade-school level students with the knowledge necessary to make educated medical decisions. In a short five years, this lack of scientific literacy has snowballed from fringe populations to a larger percentage of Americans. Eventually, the consequences for individual well-being as well as the health of our communities will be irreversible.

However, these impacts aren’t limited to grade-school education. By trying to address the issue of student discrimination on university campuses, the Trump administration has imposed punishments meant to do away with DEI and reduce academic freedoms. Specifically, Trump targeted the Ivy League—including his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. A recent New York Times analysis highlighted that this administration’s control of Ivy League universities begins monetarily; Brown University is being forced to pay $50 million over the next 10 years and Columbia University was forced to pay $21 million upright, both towards government missions. However, this crusade extends beyond financial extortion, indicating that they do not simply wish to punish discrimination, but to establish an authoritarian hold on the country’s most liberal institutions. For example, the University of Pennsylvania has barred transgender athletes from competing, and many other schools have traded diversity-enhancing admissions for more quantitative measures such as standardized tests. These measures have led graduates to rebuke their universities and to go as far as burning diplomas and/or publicly speaking out. This doesn’t only foreshadow disadvantages for individual students though; research institutions, federal agencies, and universities are responsible for many of the innovations that contribute to the United States’s international academic and economic relevance—and that’s now at risk.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies writes that such scientific dominance is especially crucial in the technological industry—for example, semiconductors. Almost every piece of technology contains semiconductors, from phones to WiFi routers, but semiconductors also play a major role in the financial market and for our military. For decades, the United States has been the core of semiconductor innovation, but a lack of funding for grants, in addition to restrictions on international student visas, detract the world’s best talents from attending American universities. Aggressive and active recruitment from universities in other leading countries looking to establish dominance in the technological industry aggravates this mass brain drain, possibly permanently demoting the United States’s international standing. Defunding scientific education puts this progress in jeopardy. The consequences of capitulating to the Trump administration’s right-wing agenda are devastating for the universities in question, and the ripple effect to other industries is unpredictable.

Nevertheless, it’s not as if all universities and research institutions have simply rolled over. When the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in research grants and $60 million in contracts and threatened to revoke tax-emption status to Harvard University in April 2025, Harvard chose to fight this legal battle. They argued that the funding cuts were unconstitutional under the First Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Fortunately, the courts are on their side. In September 2025, judge Allison Burroughs ruled that the Trump administration did, in fact, violate multiple laws; she ordered the funding cuts terminated and prevented the administration from trying such actions again. Other punitive, non-monetary measures still stand, but Harvard’s refusal to capitulate to the administration’s illogical and regressive orders to maintain academic integrity and core values is a prime example of how all universities and the education system, in general, should act if forced into this position. Although many educational institutions will face obstacles in this quest to uphold scientific truth, it’s more imperative now than ever that the country prioritize the long-term benefits of innovation—medically, autonomically, and economically—over short-term pains.