Currently the Senate Appropriations Committee is preparing to advance a bill laying out fiscal year 2026 funding for scientific agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). According to Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), the bill “protects key science missions” by cutting the NSF budget by just 0.67 percent—instead of President Trump’s requested cut of 57 percent.
“America must maintain its global leadership.”
The bill must still pass the full Senate and the House to make it into law. It should, as should full funding for the National Institute of Health (NIH). These agencies are not only the nation’s premier supporters of fundamental scientific and medical innovation, but the world’s, and America must maintain its global leadership. Ever since Vannevar Bush advanced the founding of the NSF during and after World War II, American economic and geopolitical power has been built on the confidence that what begins as “pure” research funded by the NSF will become the basis of America’s industrial and military might, from atomic bombs and nuclear power to the control systems in today’s missiles and drones. As critics from the left have never failed to notice, the NSF functions as a “feeder” for America’s military-industrial complex just as much as college football does for the NFL. Slashing its funding by more than half would therefore cripple efforts to rebuild the defense-industrial base and set back the “peace through strength” agenda.
However, the federal government must also ensure that scientific institutions serve the national interest in order to justify taxpayer funding of their activities. To this end, it should redirect grants away from the major research hubs and promote stable employment for researchers—a shift that would redound to the benefit of many scientists as well as the nation as a whole.
Trump’s proposed cuts would worsen the crisis facing American science, but that crisis began decades ago. In fact, the push for cuts is an expression of widespread disillusionment with academia, which Americans have good reason to regard as disconnected from the public and politically biased. Those working in the sciences, especially in the early parts of their careers, have their own reasons for being disillusioned with academia. In STEM fields, fewer than 1 in 5 PhDs obtain tenure-track professorship within three years of finishing their degrees. Many are simply giving up rather than applying for the “postdoc” jobs intended to tide over young academics: Applications for those high-skill, low-pay jobs have dropped by a factor of 10 over the past five years, sending a market signal to academic employers that they are simply not paying enough for skills that other sectors value more highly. But saying good riddance to public science means that research will be dominated by private interests, which have already contributed significantly to the ideological capture of the humanities and social sciences.
The current Congress has an opportunity to address several of these crises at once. The federal government already owns and operates a system of National Laboratories, rooted in rural and suburban communities throughout the country. States likewise have their land-grant state university systems. Congress should favor these public institutions in grants to academia as a Broader Impact criterion (a section of the NSF grant application). Not only does a dollar go further in Los Alamos or Columbus than in Boston or New York, but such a redirection of funding will counteract regional inequality and curtail the influence of metropolitan elites.
While empowering Middle America, Congress can also change how scientists live for the better. The scientific career path currently proceeds from undergraduate education to graduate school, postdoctoral fellowships, and (for those lucky enough) to tenure-track positions and tenure. Scientists start this career pipeline as legal adults capable of voting, driving, and marrying, but only at the tenure-track stage can we actually stop moving, buy a house, buy a car, and have kids.
Everything before tenure, therefore, is a kind of extended adolescence holding scientists back from the “real life” that, for many, now begins only in their late 30s or even early 40s.
For those in the government who say they are worried about family formation and birth rates, this is a disaster, and needless to say, most scientists don’t like it much either.
The policy fix is drastic, but simple: Congress should redirect funding from temporary trainee positions such as postdocs to permanent staff-scientist positions. If a lab wants government grants, it must give scientists the job stability of all other salaried employees, not temporary contracts in between job searches and relocations. In addition to enabling scientists to spend their time on real work rather than on advertising themselves for the next job, this reclassification would help integrate scientists socially with their surrounding communities by giving them the opportunity to remain rooted in one place, buy a home, and start a family.
Private funders have already begun moving in the direction of running institutes staffed with permanent teams of salaried scientists. Examples include the Allen and the Flatiron Institutes, miniature National Labs funded by private foundations on exactly this model in neuroscience (the Allen) and computation (the Flatiron). This approach is an improvement on the precarious “profzi scheme” and allows for the accumulation of long-term institutional knowledge. Given its clear benefits for the nation as a whole, the US government should be taking the lead.
Congress should start by funding the NSF as Senate Republicans are currently proposing, but it shouldn’t stop there. Congress can do more than merely avoid crippling important hubs of innovation in the “forgotten America” that helped elect President Trump last year. It can also target those communities with funding, while also transforming scientists from itinerant permanent students into rooted community members whose work supports the national interest.