Sturdevant: Threats to cut U research funds put Minnesota’s future economy at stake

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Robert Bruininks wants you to know that recent moves by the Trump administration have him worried about the future of the University of Minnesota — and that if you care about this state’s future, you should worry too.

Of course, for Bruininks, concern about the U is habitual. He was its 15th president, serving from 2002 to 2011. His career as a faculty member and administrator spanned the years 1968 to 2013.

Today Bruininks is a higher education elder statesman. He faces no imperative to wade into politically perilous waters. Yet moves by President Donald Trump to cut or threaten the heart of Minnesota’s flagship university — its discovery-seeking research — have compelled him to sound an alarm.

“I’m very worried about the attack on research funding,” he told me last week. “That’s the very thing that’s tied to the education and development of ideas that will determine Minnesota’s role in the world economy. When we attack that, we are attacking the very economic infrastructure of our state.”

It may be news to some Minnesotans that the Trump administration’s pressure on higher education institutions is being felt on the northern reaches of the Mississippi, far from Washington. National reporting has focused on Trump’s threat to withhold $400 million from Columbia University if it did not comply with a series of demands associated with anti-Israel protests on that New York City campus. To Columbia’s discredit, it caved.

But the University of Minnesota has not been spared from Trump’s squeeze. A March 18 report by the U showed that just one of several categories of cuts Trump is attempting to impose — a reduction in National Institutes of Health funding for research overhead costs — would cost the university between $100 million and $130 million annually.

For perspective: The operating budget of the University of Minnesota Duluth in fiscal 2025 is $310 million. The proposed NIH cuts — which are on hold pending the outcome of litigation — would be the financial equivalent of whacking UMD operations by at least a third.

The NIH cuts are not all. As of March 20, the university had received 20 “full-stop” orders and 25 “partial-stop” orders governing a variety of federal grants already issued. These are grants, Bruininks noted, that were awarded via competition with the best minds in the country on efforts to cure disease, combat climate change, improve learning, guard against future pandemics and create new industries.

That’s why a threat to research funding isn’t just about what’s next for the U. It’s also about what’s next for Minnesota.

“The threat is real,” Bruininks said. “We have been a leader in incubating new ideas that produce new businesses in Minnesota — the industries of the future.”

Entire Minnesota industries — think taconite and medical devices — owe their existence to university research. That economic incubator is still at work. Last year, the university launched a record 25 startup companies, 22 of them in Minnesota.

“Take federal research money out of here, and there will be many fewer new ideas,” Bruininks said. “The rate of return will go down.”

The rate of return to Minnesota on state investment is a statistic in which Bruininks takes particular pride, since it was on his presidential watch that a consultant was first contracted to calculate it. He had the latest numbers, and they are impressive: For every $1 in state funding the University of Minnesota receives, it generates $16.75 in combined direct and indirect economic activity in Minnesota.

But if federal research funding is reduced, a toll will be seen in human capital as well as dollars. Graduate students — particularly international ones — will go elsewhere. Faculty will leave the academy for industry. Minnesota’s best talent magnet will lose its drawing power.

That’s a particular threat to something today’s Minnesotans often take for granted — above-average economic performance compared with other Midwestern states. That advantage was not built on the quality of this state’s climate. It was built by decades of investment in a well-educated workforce and knowledge-generating research.

That theme was hammered home by every economist Bruininks met as a member of the Minnesota Business Partnership while he served as the U’s president, he recalled. He hopes that today’s business leaders are hearing the same message. Business leadership is crucial to protecting the university now, he said.

Let me add: So is the Minnesota Legislature. The University of Minnesota is one of the few components of this state’s public sector that came away from the cash-rich 2023 legislative session feeling shortchanged. State money is tighter in 2025, but the risks ahead for the state’s research university are greater.

Bruininks isn’t just pleading for external help, however. He concedes that American higher education in general and the University of Minnesota in particular should do more to help themselves. Colleges and universities have been poor communicators, particularly concerning student pricing, he said. They’ve tolerated low graduation rates and saddled too many students with too much debt. They’ve missed opportunities to forge partnerships with the private sector and other stakeholders.

“I’d say that universities need to deepen their connection to society, at all levels,” he said.

For Minnesota, much in coming years is riding on the strength of those town-and-gown connections.

Lori Sturdevant is a retired Star Tribune editorial writer and occasional columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.