Federal funding cuts are only one problem facing America’s colleges and universities

American colleges and universities are often nonprofits, but they often operate in many of the same ways that businesses do. tc397/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Higher education is under stress. The highest-profile threat has been the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to several universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.

Research universities heavily depend on federal money to conduct research and carry out other areas of work. For example, after tuition, federal money allocated for research made up 40% of the total revenue for two major research universities – Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology – in the 2022-23 academic year.