The White House's attack of major universities not only impacts foreign students, but the ability of universites to function for all their stakeholders - students as well as academians.

The White House crackdown on higher education could cause financial trouble at colleges and universities that rely on federally funded research, S&P Global Ratings warned on Monday.

“Material cuts to federal research funds could create operating pressures,” S&P said in a report.

The warning comes after the Trump administration froze about $2.2 billion of federal grants and contracts at Harvard University last week and canceled $400 million in grants and contracts for Columbia University earlier this month.

“S&P Global Ratings believes heightened credit risks for US colleges and universities with significant federally funded research are growing, given evolving policies that might reduce or delay the funding,” the credit ratings firm said.

S&P said institutions with very high research spending and doctoral production are “disproportionately affected” by the funding changes and could “experience financial pressure.”

To offset federal funding cuts, S&P said university management will need to consider budget options, including layoffs, spending cuts and reduced research programs.

To be honest, none of this makes the slightest sense to me. I understand that the current administration is "burning the furniture" in an effort to collect enough savings to extend the tax cuts, and the uneducated portions of their base are encouraged to be cheerleaders, but they are (what else is new) trashing yet another of the long-term advantages that the US has compared to its competritors. Just remember - there are as many engineering students in China as there are students in the US. If inovation is a function of the number of engineers working in the field, it explains how China could develop a compitant AI for $6 million and run it on second-class chips.

Jeff