Trump and Harvard draw headlines, but UW is also imperiled by DOGE cuts
An Associated Press/National Opinion Research Center poll conducted in early May found that 56% of Americans disapprove of the Republican president's approach to higher education. Six in 10 adults favor maintaining federal funding for scientific and medical research at colleges and universities while only about 3 in 10 support withholding federal funding from institutions for noncompliance with the president's goals or removing their tax-exempt status.
Even Republicans are strongly divided on cutting funding to campuses that do not bow to Trump's demands. While about half are in favor, about one-quarter are opposed and a similar share are neutral. Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with government censorship that attempts to command and control what is studied and taught on our nation's campuses.
The president's 'big beautiful' reconciliation bill, which narrowly passed in the House of Representatives May 22, proposes a staggering $351 billion in cuts to education and workforce programs. Almost all of that comes at the expense of low-income students and student loan borrowers.
The bill would exclude one in five current Pell Grant recipients at community colleges, not Harvard, thereby disproportionately impacting low-income students and forcing hundreds of thousands out of college altogether.
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The AP interviewed a 68-year-old Trump supporter who did not go to college herself, but made sure her children and grandchildren did. She worries that funding cuts will make it harder for people who need tuition aid to get an education. She sees it as the government 'getting in the way' of an educated society. She's right.
The poll demonstrated that support for maintaining federal funding for scientific and medical research is bipartisan, with 75% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans in favor. They're right, too.
Just look at Wisconsin. We now have 400-plus start-up companies in the state related to UW research, supporting 232,000 jobs. To highlight just one area of UW-Madison's life-saving research driven by federal funds, our scientists are working on screening for Alzheimer's with blood tests, as well as prevention therapies that would remove the plaques that cause the disease. Federally sponsored research at the UW makes vital contributions to the health of our economy and our citizens.
For this boon to Wisconsin to continue, we need to attract and retain brilliant researchers here. A different poll conducted in March of this year by the journal "Nature" found that 75.3% of American scientists have been considering leaving the United States because of the disruptions to their research caused and threatened by federal funding reductions. Yet more disturbing, for early career scientists, the figure rose to 79.4%.
Making America great is hardly about reversing the flight of scientists and intellectuals to this country from Europe during and after World War II. Continue to decimate the budgets of federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and we will lose both our scientists and our competitive edge. This at a time when China has announced an 8.3% increase in its research and development technology funding.
Before my stint as president of the University of Wisconsin System, I served four years as chancellor of UW-Extension and four years before that as extension provost. UW-Extension then had offices in all 72 counties, as well as Wisconsin Public Broadcasting studios and reporters, and Small Business Development Centers, across the state. I spent those eight years traveling around Wisconsin, asking farmers, small business owners, and local government officials what the UW could do to improve their quality of life.
Many of our fellow citizens I talked with did not have a college degree. Nevertheless, when I scratched down a little ways I found the pride they felt in the University of Wisconsin and what it was doing for their farms, their communities, their children and grandchildren. It's on you now, my Wisconsin senators, to defend the higher education system they built over many generations from the damage short-sighted federal idealogues would do to it.
We need you to listen to the shifting opinions of the American people, including your Wisconsin constituents, who the AP/NORC poll shows want you to do just that.
Kevin P. Reilly is president emeritus of the University of Wisconsin system. He served as president of the system from 2004 to 2013.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UW system could be hit by Trump attack on higher education | Opinion
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