As business leaders, we are deeply concerned about damage to America’s economy resulting from federal actions that impair U.S. research universities. Since World War II, the federal government has made the strategic decision to invest in universities, anchoring U.S. leadership and competitiveness. It's an investment that has yielded extraordinary returns for the nation.
Curtailing funding dramatically, conditioning research dollars on political criteria, restricting student visas, and targeting universities' endowments and tax-exempt status will do nothing to address the real challenges that we believe universities must face.
Many of us have founded companies and launched ground-breaking products based on campus discoveries, spanning biomedical engineering, gene therapy, pharmaceuticals, digital infrastructure, and aerospace technologies. We partner with top academic researchers recruited from all over the world. We hire from a wide range of universities and benefit every day from the essential training that they have provided our employees. But last month’s federal cutbacks are already causing harm. For example, MIT cut 13% of graduate students for research programs, Penn’s medical school cut 35% of PhD slots, and UT Austin professors said cuts will derail life-saving research. These reductions mean fewer treatments, fewer startups, and fewer breakthroughs that benefit all Americans.
In addition to these direct funding cuts, the capping of National Institutes of Health indirect costs at 15% would slash essential infrastructure at universities across the country and threaten progress in areas like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and child mortality. As the head of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System explained, this cap will “hurt… all of the United States and the world for inventions that we have led the way on since World War II. The discoveries won’t be there.”
At the very moment President Trump says Deepseek’s release of its R1 model is a “wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing,” the administration’s actions enable other nations to poach American researchers and siphon away our top talent. The administration’s abrupt move to revoke international student visas at Harvard has sparked fear and uncertainty across college campuses—threatening America’s appeal as a destination for global talent.
Serious challenges regarding antisemitism, viewpoint diversity, affordability, and other issues demand progress. The government has every right to investigate universities under existing laws or review research funding for waste. But our laws require due process, proportionate remedies, and congressional notification rules that protect against partisan abuse.
As MIT President Emeritus Rafael Reif warned, weakening universities “is a recipe for national decline.” Universities have long worked in partnership with our federal government and the private sector to drive American innovation.
We call on Congress and the administration to restore funding for research and financial aid, respect due process, and uphold the independence of America’s universities.