On March 10, the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) President Thomas P. Foley sent a letter to Pennsylvania’s representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, warning that cutting federal funding could hurt Pennsylvania’s economy.
Elizabethtown College is a member of AICUP, and is one of 35 schools who would be at risk of losing research funding with proposed cuts in congress.
Proposals about funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) would cut funding for the two institutes, combined, by $10 billion. The two institutions would have less funding for grants, which provide much-needed funds to higher-education institutions to complete research.
“I write today to let you know that these proposed cuts will do severe damage to Pennsylvania’s economy and jeopardize America’s role as the world leader in science and research, potentially for generations,” Foley said in the letter. “The bottom line is that this national research funding is an investment that pays dividends across Pennsylvania.”
Foley listed four reasons that cutting funding will cause harm. He said that grant funding recruits talent in Pennsylvania, which attracts out-of-state students, grows jobs in Pennsylvania, is an economic driver for Pennsylvania and creates unique opportunities.
“This issue transcends party politics, because academic research benefits all Americans,” Foley said in the letter. “These kinds of cuts will handicap our scientists and put us behind the science race that is central to continued American progress in healthcare, leadership in the world of innovation, and economic prosperity.”
In the last fiscal year, Pennsylvania got $1.8 billion in NIH funding and $332 million in NSF funding. Around half of the NIH funding went to AICUP institutions while $186 million of the NSF funding went to AICUP institutions.
Elizabethtown College received $360,000 in grants from the National Science foundation in the 2024 fiscal year. Republican U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker’s district covers Elizabethtown College, and he received the letter from Foley, as well as U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and David McCormick.
Recently, A.C. Baugher Professor of Chemistry James A. McKay received an NSF Research grant for research that has been going on since 2017. The $825,000 grant was combined between McKay and Binghamton University Professor of Chemistry Eriks Rozners, the third in a series of grants the two have awarded. More than 20 Etown students have helped with the research through programs like Etown’s Summer Creative Arts and Research Program (SCARP).
Another notable NSF grant received by the college was in 2022, when Etown was awarded $1.2 million in NSF Funding to launch the Greenway Center for Sustainability and Equity in Engineering in partnership with the Greenway Institute in Vermont.
AICUP’s letter, on behalf of its 85 member institutions, called for the 19 federal representatives of the commonwealth to pay attention to NIH and NSF funding. While President Donald Trump’s administration has partially lifted some funding freezes, both organization’s grant funding is still in limbo.
