Trump’s proposed budget targets research funding after major cuts last year

U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed 2027 fiscal year budget included massive cuts to climate change research and the National Institutes of Health, which may pose challenges to research funding at Princeton. 

The Association of American Universities (AAU) released a statement on April 3, urging Congress to stand against the proposed budget, which is threatening a 12.3 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, a 54 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, and cuts to NASA and some research agencies of the Department of Energy. 

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 currently sits on the AAU’s 13-member Board of Directors. He served a one-year term as the chair of the Association from October 2024 and currently holds the official position of past chair. 

In fiscal year 2024, Princeton received $455 million in government-funded grants and contracts, including from the NIH. Last spring, the Trump administration suspended $210 million in federal grants to research at Princeton, though around half the total was reinstated over the summer. 

Trump’s proposed budget includes a historic $1.5 trillion for defense spending, representing a 44 percent increase from last year’s defense budget. 

Alongside a 12.3 percent cut to NIH’s annual budget, Trump proposed the elimination of institutes and centers “replete with DEI expenditures,” specifically the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which include research on the impacts of structural racism on social interconnectedness among minorities and the stigmatization of HIV. 

“NIH broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health,” Trump’s proposal reads. 

The press release from AAU asserts that the slashes to funding could have disastrous consequences for medical research — research that is also being done at Princeton. As of February 2025, Princeton has 199 active NIH grants that make up approximately 22 percent of the University’s research portfolio across areas such as cancer research and child development.

“Such a drastic cut would turn the United States overnight from the world’s unquestioned leader in biomedical research to last place among our competitor nations — reducing the chances that American science cures cancer, Alzheimer’s, or other terminal and debilitating conditions,” the release reads.

If the proposed budget comes to pass, funding for the NSF would be slashed by over half — from 8.8 billion dollars, which has been requested for both FY25 and FY26, to 4 billion dollars. This is a 54.7 percent decrease in the total amount of money being requested for the budget.

In the 2024 fiscal year, Princeton spent over $70 million in NSF-funded research and development, and Ph.D. students at Princeton were affected by the cancellation of the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship last February.

While the proposed budget does not directly address the reasons for slashing the NSF funding, the AAU believes that the cuts could “severely weaken our nation’s ability to generate new fundamental knowledge and the cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs that have served as the foundation for the development of whole new industries in biotech, information technology, and artificial intelligence.”

NASA would also have a dramatic cut to funding, should the budget come to pass. In FY25, the $24.8 billion had been requested, with a small decrease to $24.4 billion in FY26. Trump is currently requesting $18.8 billion — a 23 percent decrease.

The budget states that “by cutting unnecessary and overpriced activities, the Budget strengthens [NASA’s] focus and ensures that every dollar spent propels America’s dominance in the final frontier,” as well as funding the “first elements of a permanent American presence on the lunar surface.” 

Parts of the cuts to NASA would include a $3.4 billion decrease in NASA Science, which actively funds research grants; a $297 million decrease in funding for space technology research and development that the proposal asserts “is not driven by user needs or wastes limited resources” and supports unnamed “frivolous technology projects with no applications”; and a $143 million decrease in Office of STEM Engagement funding, which the proposed budget claims subsidizes “woke STEM programming and research that prioritizes some groups of students over others.”  

While it is not immediately clear whether labs at Princeton will be directly affected, there are labs at Princeton that conduct research using grants from NASA and on space technology, including the Space Physics Lab and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). 

Trump’s budget request for the DOE totaled $53.9 billion, approximately 2 percent greater than the $53 billion enacted for the 2026 fiscal year. The proposed budget heavily prioritizes the development of nuclear weapons capabilities, directing $32.8 billion in funding to the National Nuclear Security Administration for the expansion and modernization of nuclear warheads and deterrents — a 12 percent increase from 2026 levels. Proposed cuts to the DOE include funding for climate change and environmental justice research, which the budget refers to as “Green New Scam projects.” 

Last spring, the PPPL, a DOE national laboratory managed by the University, laid off staff as part of a restructuring effort “to align with sponsor and PPPL priorities and projects, and to ensure that PPPL operates within its available and projected budgets,” Deputy Director for Research Jon Menard wrote at the time. 

“Likewise, the president’s proposed cuts to NASA and the research agencies of the Department of Energy would hobble the broader American scientific enterprise at a crucial time when dominance in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing is essential to keeping Americans safe and prosperous,” the AAU wrote.

Congress is expected to begin editing the FY27 proposed budget in May, with a Congressional floor vote potentially in August. 

In last year’s budget, Trump proposed funding cuts to NSF, NASA, and other research agencies, but Congress largely kept these funding levels stable.

“We urge Congress, as they did with the FY26 budget, to reject these short-sighted cuts and increase investments in America’s scientific enterprise to ensure that our nation continues to lead the world — and that all Americans keep benefiting from the greatest research-and-innovation engine the world has ever known,” the AAU wrote.

Luke Grippo is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey, and typically covers high-profile interviews and University and town politics. He can be reached at luke.grippo[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

Sena Chang is the associate News editor for the ‘Prince’ leading investigations. She is from Japan and South Korea, and she often covers local politics and student life. She can be reached at sena[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.