APLU Statement on the Administration’s Budget Request

Washington, DC – Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) President Mark Becker today released the following statement on the administration’s skinny budget proposal.

“Rather than ushering in a new Golden Age, the administration is proposing cuts to higher education and scientific research of an astonishing magnitude that would decimate U.S. innovation, productivity, and national security. We call on Congress to reject these deeply misguided proposed cuts and instead invest in the nation’s future through education and pathbreaking research.

“Federal student aid is critical to increasing college affordability, timely graduation, and building the workforce our nation needs to compete and thrive. Thanks to public four-year universities controlling costs, increases in state investment, and bolstered federal student aid in recent years, net tuition and fees for in-state students is down 40 percent after inflation over the last decade. Eliminating and slashing federal student aid threatens to reverse this critical progress, leave students shouldering higher costs, or put college entirely out of reach. And it would devastate the ability to meet the workforce needs of tomorrow.

“Massive cuts to federally funded research would put U.S. global leadership in innovation in retreat and embolden our global competitors. Discoveries from federally funded research are the foundation for a vast array of innovations that have saved lives, improved quality of life, fueled job and business creation that power our economy, and provided our military with tools needed to assure our national security. Federal research has sparked lifesaving cures for deadly diseases, the Internet, AI, the shale gas revolution, and much, much more.

“Make no mistake: slashing NIH research by 40% will delay or deny lifesaving treatments for patients desperately waiting for cures. Halving NSF-funded research will sideline researchers racing toward new discoveries in frontier fields such as biotechnology, AI, advanced energy technology, and materials sciences. And slashing USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture funding by a third will devastate U.S. agriculture innovation and productivity with severe impacts on farmers and consumers.

“Congressional leadership is needed to reject misguided cuts to higher education and research, which are major drivers of American productivity, job creation, and innovation and instead redouble investment in widely recognized sources of American global economic leadership.”