In case you're looking for schools to avoid. I'm not surprised by WashU, ASU or KU, but Daniels has a lot to answer for by contributing to this. JHU's the single school most heavily reliant on federal research $, but that's a lousy excuse considering how the Trump administration has targeted them.

Jacob T. Levy@jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 2d ago

Four university presidents, "Andrew Martin at Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Crow at Arizona State University, Douglas Girod at the University of Kansas, & Ronald Daniels at the Johns Hopkins University" collaborated in the latest attack on higher ed. www.chronicle.com/liveblog/her...

This would completely destroy international graduate education in the US. That's obviously the point, because they want fewer legal immigrants period.

Douglas Natelson@nanoscaleviews.bsky.social · 6d ago

🧪⚛️ The administration is considering charging someone (graduates? employers? unclear) $100K for OPT, the part of the international student visa that allows graduates to work for some time after completing their degrees. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

⚛️🧪 NSF announced the new Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) today. This program has been the heart of fundamental materials research for decades but was drastically cut as the Trump admin moved money (illegally) into other programs. 1/n www.nsf.gov/news/buildin...

Building the future, atom by atom — NSF deploys $108M for materials science at 6 research centers

The U.S. National Science Foundation is pushing materials science beyond the state-of-the-art with an investment of $108 million in six advanced research centers. The centers will explore a broad…

nsf.gov

I may be the only person who would say this, but Dulles is ... fine? I've never really understood the hate. Plus it's got Metro now. The people movers even have a certain stupid charm.

Daniel Drezner@dandrezner.bsky.social · last wk.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but… Donald Trump is absolutely right about something. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

The editorial from Science this week (by @holdenthorp.bsky.social and citing @cdelawalla.bsky.social and @standupforscience.net ) is also good (by different). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

University science in the US needs a coherent plan

The Trump administration continues to degrade America’s scientific establishment, causing widespread harm to the country’s broader interests and well-being. Last week, the Association of American Univ...

science.org

If you want an example of why having political appointees deeply involved in grantmaking... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...

Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him (Gift Article)

Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

nytimes.com

This confirms what we've known all along: the Trump Administration is using federal funding to punish states that dont fall in line politically.

Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him

Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

nytimes.com

Also: We keep hearing that a number of Congressmembers think that everything at NIH has gone back to normal, and the Trump appointees are in fact on the side of saving NIH. That is false. Things at NIH are WORSE than last year. Please reach out to your senators and reps and tell them that.

I co-sign this great summary from @dereklowe.bsky.social . The goal is to destroy academic science, and these are the reasons. And all the “gold standard” and “needs reform” and “not high risk” stuff is transparent bullshit to hide the ball on what they are doing.

Derek Lowe@dereklowe.bsky.social · 2w ago

Thoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:

My LinkedIn feed is like nothing but DOE Genesis announcements right now. Meanwhile NSF is getting gutted. I really don't have anything against AI/ML research given that I have money in that area, but Genesis was the worst funding call I've ever seen and it's getting huge press. ⚛️🧪 🤬🤬🤬🤬

Karen S Wilcox, PhD (she/her)@karenswilcoxphd.bsky.social · 2w ago

Yeah so this is not good. Thanks to @jeremymberg.bsky.social For speaking out…I would argue that great strides have been made in human health and this is a bad direction to go in…… www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...

Time is a flat circle. We've normalized Trump, so of course Nixon's crimes look mild by comparison.

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 2w ago

The kids are “Nixonmaxxing”: More than half-a-century after Watergate, conservative youth are discovering the aesthetic, and adopting the attitude, of the late president. 🔗 www.wsj.com/politics/ric...

"There is no such thing as final victory or defeat. There is only a new phase of the battle." I should think everyone needs reminding of it, youth especially.

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 2w ago

The kids are “Nixonmaxxing”: More than half-a-century after Watergate, conservative youth are discovering the aesthetic, and adopting the attitude, of the late president. 🔗 www.wsj.com/politics/ric...

Trump is going after the National Academy of Sciences. Gift link.

Trump Attacks National Academies Over Climate Chapter in Judges’ Manual (Gift Article)

The president joined Republican officials who slammed the National Academies of Sciences for a chapter about climate science in an educational guide for judges.

nytimes.com

Nigel Goldenfeld@nigelgoldenfeld.bsky.social · 2w ago

🧪 #climate Trump has ordered a probe of the National Academy of Sciences. If the timing on his post is Eastern Time, and he actually types his posts himself, then I guess this was on his mind during the World Cup final.

I'm still waiting to see what happens once we reach the August time frame for Vought's so-called "pocket rescissions" scheme. All of this lines up with their planning for a lot of such actions.

Josh Chafetz@joshchafetz.bsky.social · 2w ago

Very important piece by Cerin Lindgrensavage and @davidasuper.bsky.social. This behavior by the administration is not only illegal, it is anti-constitutional. thehill.com/opinion/cong...

Pet peeve of mine: "a party stops" takes away all agency from individual voters. Everyday people want and vote for this. A plurality of GOP voters think this is good for America. The remainder think these guys are better than any Democrat. That's a huge problem with no clear solution!

Kyle Clark@kylec.bsky.social · 2w ago

More national attention for Colorado’s Gov race. The LA Times writes that GOP candidate Victor Marx is “what happens when a party stops seriously competing and instead indulges its fever dreams.” www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

Trump / Miller are now limiting student visas to 4 years. PhD programs typically run 5-6 years in many disciplines.

Trump administration tightens visa rules for foreign students

Students will need federal permission to stay longer than four years in the US and universities will lose the power to extend visas.

bbc.com

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 11mo ago

Every single day of this administration, I have thought of my late professor Joe Nye and his work on soft power. Every single day of this administration, Trump finds a new way to hemorrhage soft power from a country that once had more to spare than any in the world.

One common thread at the conference I'm currently attending: If a presentation is coming from a company, you get very little detail and AI slop figures. We want to hear what these companies are doing, but we don't want to hear the sales pitch! You're at a science conference, share the results! 🧪⚛️

This skeet, from a year ago, is getting likes and reposts again. Much has changed: instead of indirectly clawing back Congressionally allocated research money via fines and non-reimbursement, Trump is directly skimming off Congressionally allocated research money for "White House projects."

Kim Weeden@weedenkim.bsky.social · last yr.

So, Columbia paid out $221M so that the Trump administration would resume payments on $400M in existing grants (i.e., signed work contracts) and so that Columbia could compete for future HHS/NIH awards. Lucy didn't even wait a week before pulling up the football.

🧪⚛️ This is very bad, delaying (!) or cutting (!!) funding to recommended proposals and introducing enormous uncertainty into an already chaotic situation. How does Congress feel about $B-scale diversions from planned appropriations? Apparently not bad enough to do anything.

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 4w ago

New: The National Science Foundation is preparing to claw back some $500 million in funds from some of its core science programs in physics, math, computer science, and engineering in order to fund a project from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

🧪⚛️ New reporting about unprecedented mid-year cuts at NSF confirms bad news and raises many questions. nanoscale.blogspot.com/2026/07/bad-...

Bad to worse at NSF? (July 2026 edition)

When I wrote this post last month , I really did not want it to be first in a series. The inciting incident to write that post was a news ar...

nanoscale.blogspot.com

It's been a thing forever, but I would love to strangle whoever the first person was that suggested, "We should take a picture of everyone at this conference!"

I agree with this post, the thread, and the post he is quoting. I think it's worth noting that you can sum up nearly all of the (very real) problems in higher ed as "the university wants their money." The current federal admin, politically-motivated trustees and donors, disinterested students, etc.

Kieran Healy@kjhealy.co · 4w ago

If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.

🧪⚛️ One week left for public comment on the proposed OMB rule changes - act while we still can! nanoscale.blogspot.com/2026/07/omb-...

As a newly crowned departmental grad studies director, this is accurate. We had to decline admission to so many good students this cycle. It would take a pretty dramatic reversal of fortune in federal funding for next year to be better.

Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD@prasad.bsky.social · last mo.

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/u... an ominous trend: graduate admissions are down 15 percent from last year, on top of an 11 percent decrease from the previous year we are destroying our seed corn

You might think that the chancellors & presidents of the country’s leading R1 research universities, faced with such an existential crisis, would speak up, loudly & collectively against the authoritarian assault on their institutions. Alas, you would (still) be sadly wrong. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD@prasad.bsky.social · last mo.

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/u... an ominous trend: graduate admissions are down 15 percent from last year, on top of an 11 percent decrease from the previous year we are destroying our seed corn

🧪⚛️ This trend is exceedingly bad. I know that program officers within NSF still are aiming to make all their awards before end of the fiscal year, but I worry very much whether OMB et al. will allow that. grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

The NSF is on Track for its Worst Year in Generations – Grant Witness

Throttling of science funding is utterly unprecedented and radical when compared to the past 50 years.

grant-witness.us

🧪⚛️ OMB is not being shy, at all, about wanting to cancel or deny grants based on political preferences. This is very very bad. www.politico.com/live-updates...

OMB nominee touts plan to give Trump appointees power to kill grants

The administration is expected to finalize the proposed changes as soon as this summer.

politico.com

🧪⚛️That feeling where you're watching the flight progress of the new ARPES/XPS you've been waiting 18 months for. 😅

Please submit all syllabi and research plans to the Party Committee for approval.

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“The Auburn University Board of Trustees on Friday gave itself complete control over course offerings, curriculum, degree requirements and academic credentials while eliminating shared governance at the Alabama land-grant university… The policy leaves many questions unanswered”

In #AcademicSky news from my old institution, the Auburn board will vote to dissolve the University Senate today. This is, of course, a travesty. It is also completely predictable given that state. I am again warning anyone who has a choice that you should avoid working for red state boards.