Visualizing Federal Funding at U.S. Universities

“The New York Times [no paywall] has created a visualization mapping the distribution of federal funding to universities across the country using data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. Each circle on the map represents a university, with size indicating the amount of federal funding received in 2023—ranging from $10 million to over $1 billion—and color distinguishing public (orange) from private (purple) institutions. The map shows that federal research dollars reached universities in every state, with major funding clusters in coastal metro areas, but also significant investments in less populous states. Some public universities, like the University of Washington and Georgia Tech, received funding levels comparable to top private institutions.”

[NYT] “In fiscal year 2023 alone, roughly $60 billion flowed from the federal government to universities in all 50 states, funding research on an array of topics, like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and rare isotope beams. Funding went to small colleges, like the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota, as well as major public and private research institutions, like Georgia Tech and Johns Hopkins. That money, in turn, often provided a boon to the surrounding communities. More federal research and development money generally flows to locations with bigger populations that are home to multiple major universities, like Chicago, Los Angeles and big East Coast cities. But institutions in less populated states, like the University of Utah and the University of Kansas, also receive hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of that funding is now on the chopping block as the administration seeks to exert control over universities, and as Elon Musk’s initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, moves to root out what it says is wasteful spending. The government’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health have hit research and development funding particularly hard, leaving some schools unsure about the future of certain projects. Many of the 60-plus schools that the Trump administration has accused of antisemitism and threatened to investigate are major recipients of federal research and development money. Collectively, those schools spent about $23 billion in federal research money in fiscal year 2023, more than one third of the total amount distributed to universities…”