The Trump administration’s cancellation of federal funds for highly selective universities in blue states has drawn national media attention. But a new report from a left-leaning think tank stresses that the federal government isn’t targeting only Harvard and Columbia’s research and innovation grants.

“Republican- and Democrat-governed states are facing similar impacts relative to their student populations in terms of funding terminated by the administration,” says the Center for American Progress’s report, released today. And no institution is safe, CAP notes.

“Institutions affected by grant terminations range from some of the country’s largest public universities to private research universities, small liberal arts colleges, and community colleges,” the report says. Land-grant universities and historically Black colleges and universities “have been particularly affected, with more than two-thirds of all land-grant universities and nearly half of all HBCUs targeted for funding terminations.”

The report says that as of early July, federal agencies had terminated or were attempting to terminate more than 4,000 grants across over 600 institutions. These grants are worth somewhere between $6.9 billion and $8.2 billion combined, of which over $3 billion has yet to be spent by institutions, the CAP analysts said. (They said the range is because Treasury data shows lower values than the Health and Human Services Department or the Department of Government Efficiency data.) They also concluded that public colleges and universities “have had nearly twice the amount of funding targeted” as private ones.

The report underscores how the Trump administration’s attack on higher ed funding is a national crusade affecting researchers from multiple fields, rather than a narrow strike.

Greta Bedekovics, CAP’s associate director of democracy and a co-author of the report, said that “while national news has really focused on political retribution against Ivy League universities, we’re seeing that hundreds of millions [of dollars] in some cases are being taken away from public institution systems. And it’s even trickling down to the community college level.”

Some community colleges have lost significant amounts, including Allan Hancock College in California, which saw about $350,000 cut.

Will Ragland, the other co-author and vice president of research at CAP’s advocacy and outreach department, said “the nation’s engine for research and innovation is purposely stalled, when it should be accelerating.”

From Brain to Bison Research

The majority of grants targeted for termination are from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the analysts found.

“They funded research to improve postdoctoral training in cardiovascular diseases; find new therapies for incurable brain tumors; support recovery after a stroke; study the spread of viruses to prevent global pandemics; better understand the negative health effects of heavy metals in drinking water; understand the chemical exposure health risks affecting kids when they inhale soil and dust; and reduce the risk of illicit opioid use in relation to chronic pain,” the report says.

While other tracking projects have followed NIH and NSF grant cuts, this report also includes terminations from other agencies, providing a broader picture of the Trump administration’s slashing. The targeted grants came from 16 departments or agencies, including the Agriculture, Commerce and Defense Departments, the analysts write. They say these included projects on how to increase entrepreneurship, reduce energy dependence on other countries and expand beef and bison markets across the Great Plains.

Looking at the Treasury data, CAP’s report shows that colleges and universities across Texas are set to lose roughly $316 million in unspent grant funds, making that red state the nation’s biggest loser. Three blue states follow: New York, at $313 million, California, at $294 million, and Massachusetts, at $252 million.

CAP also divided the total amounts that states are set to lose by how many higher ed students they have. After this calculation, South Dakota—where the governor is a Republican and the Legislature has 98 Republicans to only nine Democrats—is the biggest loser in the nation, losing $1,752 per student or $69 million overall.

Next in the enrollment-adjusted losses are Hawaii, at $1,660 per student, and Massachusetts again, at $579. But Idaho follows close behind, at $565 per student.

“Four of the 10 states—South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and South Carolina—that have lost the most funding per student have Republican governors, and six—Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and New York—have Democratic governors,” the report says.

Joshua Weitz—part of the Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project, which has been tracking NIH grant cuts and projecting their wider economic fallout—said North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas are among the top seven impacted states in his tracker. Weitz, a biology professor and Clark Leadership Chair in Data Analytics at the University of Maryland at College Park, said NIH cuts are hitting red, blue and purple states hard.

“It is not targeted to a particular, narrow sector,” he said. “This is national in scope, and significant.”

Tough to Track

The authors note that “data from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and other federal sources,” which they used for their report, “have come under scrutiny for their accuracy.” But they said these sources still “provide the clearest picture of the Trump administration’s intended impact on a broad cross section of higher education and the communities it serves.”

They also point out large discrepancies between DOGE data and other federal data that CAP used, including information from HHS.

“While DOGE has published some HHS grant terminations for higher education institutions—681 grants—HHS published more than 1,346,” the report says.

CAP says it pulled data from DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts,” HHS’s list of terminated grants and Treasury’s USAspending.gov.

In addition, the report only looks at grant terminations, not frozen grants. And it’s a snapshot in time—including many grant terminations that are being challenged in courts—so it could change.

The data still counts as terminated the roughly 900 NIH grants that a Massachusetts federal judge last month ordered NIH to restore. It’s unclear how many have been restored so far, and the Trump administration has appealed the ruling.

STAT reported that the litigation filed by states against the Trump administration, if ultimately successful, may lead to red states suffering worse NIH cuts than blue states; all 16 states that sued have Democratic attorney generals. The news outlet calculated that “scientists in Democratic congressional districts stand to have $2.1 billion in grants reinstated, compared to $62 million in Republican districts.”

The CAP report says, “Data for some institutions in this report do not match data or funding cut figures calculated or released by individual institutions.”

“The authors recognize that individual institutions likely have the best figures for the funds they have had terminated,” the report says, “but they believe it is important to publish data as reported by the federal government to keep the government accountable and for public transparency.”

The White House didn’t comment on the report. Cassandra Eichner, an NSF spokesperson, said in an email that “the agency has determined that termination of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities and/or programmatic goals.”

Andrew Nixon, communications director for HHS, which includes NIH, said in an email that “HHS stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people.”

“HHS is committed to ensuring that taxpayer dollars support programs rooted in evidence-based practices and gold standard science—not driven by divisive DEI mandates or gender ideology,” Nixon said. “We are now focused on restoring credibility, addressing the chronic disease epidemic that threatens millions of Americans, and positioning the United States as the global leader in biomedical innovation.”

Madi Biedermann, an Education Department spokesperson, said in an email that “the Trump Department of Education will prioritize funding that supports meaningful learning and improving student outcomes, not divisive ideologies and woke propaganda.”

But the CAP analysts said higher ed is being attacked across the board, and institutions need to unify in opposition.

“It really is an existential crisis for these institutions, and if they’re going to weather this storm, they really need to band together and stand up to the administration,” Bedekovics said.