Learned today that the University is telling the School of Medicine to cut costs, which means the School of Medicine is telling the Department to cut costs, which means that the Department is adjusting its policy of supporting grad student tuition coverage for Dept faculty members, which means that each of the PhD students in the lab will now cost somewhat more than they did before the department changed its policy. This is potentially not an insignificant change, so obviously justifies me re-running my budget projections out to determine the new lab doomsday (when we run out of funds).

Theoretical projection based on total income and total salary costs (with operational costs being estimated as 60% of salary cost).

Complementary projection based on how much money is left in all of my accounts (including a non-competing renewal for year 5 of my R35, so the Fed gov actually honoring the full terms of the awarded grant, which is no longer automatic since they are no longer a dependable entity in the world), subtracted by costs of salary (and again, operational costs being estimated as 60% of salary).

After re-doing the math, it turns out that this will be ~30k of lab funds that will have to go to pay for tuition that was not expected before. Current doomsday estimate is September 2027. Of course, if I am able to secure more funding for the lab to continue our research, then this number can be pushed back. But really, if the Fed Gov is no longer a dependable supporter of American science, then it’s really unclear how possible that even is anymore.

Your current Federal Government at work, folks. Purposefully destroying American higher education and the American biomedical science ecosystem (all American science, really). We’re no longer going to be world leaders in science. New findings, new therapies, new cures for disease; all minimally delayed and perhaps some never seeing the light of day. Uncountable numbers of preventable deaths. All b/c of politics. What a sad state we exist in.