The Research Squeeze

Since tuition, private gifts and endowment income fail to balance their budgets, U.S. universities increasingly tend to rely on the Federal Government for financial salvation. The current congressional economy drive, which has sharply limited federal support for academic research, has thus created a situation that university officials variously describe as "serious," "desperate" and even "disastrous."

The deepest cuts have been made in the basic-research programs of the National Science Foundation, which also provided about 8,000 new fellowships for graduate students last year. Congress sliced $95 million from the NSF projects, a 19% cut from last year's total. The research funds of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were left almost intact, but NASA's support of graduate students was almost abandoned. NASA offered 1,335 new fellowships in 1966, but only about 45 this year. The U.S. Office of Education, which had hoped to begin major demonstration projects in new teaching techniques, saw its request slashed by more than $50 million. Its support of educational research at universities was cut from $17.1 million to $12.3 million.

Military Salesmanship. Educators are particularly concerned about congressional preference for applied research aimed at quick results, as against basic research, which may have no immediately demonstrable value. Congress barely touched the $1.1 billion research program of the National Institutes of Health, most of which is aimed at solving major medical problems. It actually added $48 million to the $137 million worth of academic-research projects sponsored by the Department of Defense, which has little difficulty in selling its military studies to the Houseof Representatives. Such work, however, is losing its allure on campus. Many scholars dislike the enforced secrecy of defense research; others simply refuse to apply their brainpower to any project that might remotely assist the U.S. military effort in Viet Nam.

The timing of the research cutbacks especially irks graduate schools. The cuts came after universities had already signed contracts with professors and graduate researchers for the current school year. "You just can't tell a man to come to the university and then cut him off," protests Raymond E. Peck, a vice president of the University of Missouri. With commitments already made, the schools claim that they will have to dip into their own operating funds or endowments to keep many of the NSF projects going. The Berkeley mathematics department termed the NSF reductions "outrageous and inequitable," and issued a statement warning the university that the cutbacks would cripple its research and cause staff members to leave.

Bailed Out by Caltech. Stanford officials expect to lose $7 million from the school's total research budget of $46.1 million, which means that the university will operate at least $700,000 in the red this year. Assistant Dean Richard Leahy of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences predicts that some graduate students will have to drop out because of a 25% cut in research support. Harvard's Graduate School of Education may have to abandon a promising study of how preschool children develop. Caltech will have to provide at least $500,000 of its own money to keep 80 NSF research projects going.

One such project was organized by Professor George Hammond, chairman of the university's Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, who last spring was awarded $42,500 by the NSF for photochemistry studies. Hammond, who has already committed $33,000 for graduate assistants and equipment, now faces a cut of 17%, which would leave him only $2,275 for all of the costly computer time and technical help needed to complete the work. His only hope is that Caltech will somehow be able to come to his rescue.

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