The Government Shutdown Is Reaching Historic Territory. Here’s What That Means for Higher Ed.

The University of Arizona has a grim message for professors on its website: If the partial government shutdown stretches on, the impact on research and science will only grow.

New funding? Don’t count on it. Payment on existing grants? On pause. Peer-review of pending grant applications? Postponed.

On Friday the 21-day shutdown was tied for the longest in U.S. history, and it appeared poised to break the record as elected officials adjourned for the weekend early in the afternoon. Federal agencies that have not been funded for the remainder of the 2019 fiscal year, including the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Agriculture, closed in late December. Other agencies, whose 2019 budgets were approved by Congress and signed by President Trump, are open.

Almost immediately, stories from around the country showed the personal and systemic effects of the shutdown in academe. An assistant professor told NPR that the shutdown may have derailed his first-ever NSF award. Emory University estimated that more than 100 of its active grants had been affected. The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities warned scientists that they may not be able to email or call officials who work for agencies that have gone dark.

But top academic officials have started to look ahead, wondering what would happen if the shutdown extended for several more weeks — or longer. They fear a wide impact on grant renewals, early-career scientists, and potential big purchases or travel.

University officials can pay costs that will ultimately be covered by external funding before that money is actually received, said Peter K. Dorhout, Kansas State University’s vice president for research. That may work on a short-term basis, he said, “but it’s not the kind of thing that can go on for more than 90 days.”

Even research that has already been funded by agencies closed in the shutdown may be disrupted. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, where such agencies spent about $130 million in sponsored research in the 2018 fiscal year, administrators asked principal investigators to delay big purchases, such as equipment, and nonessential travel until the partial shutdown ends.

Dorhout and others are concerned about the impact of an extended shutdown on early-career scientists who may have less savings on which to draw — and whose frenzied pursuit of federal grants could make or break their future in academe.

“You’re delaying the hiring of research assistants, graduate students, and postdocs,” said Joan F. Lorden, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “At that point, you start eating the seed corn for the next generation of scientists.”

Field season for Keir Wefferling, a postdoctoral fellow studying botany at the University of California at Berkeley, officially starts next Tuesday. He planned to travel to Riverside County, in Southern California, where recent rain fostered perfect conditions for collecting the ferns that he studies. The areas Wefferling planned to visit are managed by the U.S. Forest Service, part of the Agriculture Department, and the National Wildlife Refuge System, part of the Interior Department.

He’s got problems, though. Because both agencies are closed, his permits for the U.S. Forest Service land haven’t arrived, and the National Wildlife Refuge System personnel are unable to guide him through collections.

Wefferling has two young children at home, but he still feels fortunate that he has a home — and for his network of friends and family members.

“But I am for sure frustrated and disappointed this is happening to our country,” he said. “It’s sad that so many collaborators cannot work right now.”

‘This Just Creates Chaos’

Professors up for tenure next year, hoping to snag just one more grant to include in a hiring packet, may also see problems if the grant-review process continues to lag, Lorden said.

The government’s fiscal year ends on September 30. The longer federal agencies stay dark, the more grant applications will pile up. “Taking a month out is pretty significant, depending on what happens,” she said. “But if this goes on for months, they won’t be able to catch up.”

Like so many issues of funding, the shutdown has the potential to exacerbate differences between small and large colleges.

Government agencies, instead of giving an entire grant upfront, rely on colleges and universities to charge the agencies as they spend money, said Gerald C. Blazey, vice president for research and innovation partnerships at Northern Illinois University. But invoices can pile up.

“That’s fine for a university with big, deep pockets,” he said. “For the smaller universities, if it goes on too long, it’s going to be a problem … At six months, I’d really start thinking about how I’m going to finance unpaid bills. I’d certainly have to ask myself.”

When the federal agencies closed, on December 21, Lorden said, she hoped the dispute could be resolved quickly at the start of a new Congress, even though Democrats would regain control of the House of Representatives and Trump showed no signs of backing down from his demand for funds to build a border wall.

A closure over the winter holidays — that wouldn’t have been so damaging, she reasoned. But her hopeful sentiment has since faded as January progressed.

“It’s really damaging to the whole scientific enterprise,” she said. “Any shutdown like this just creates chaos.”

Kevin Johnson knows that firsthand. Johnson, an NSF-funded postdoctoral fellow at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, studies how global warming and freshwater runoff affect oysters in the state’s lakes.

He can continue his research, but on January 2 he realized his fellowship funds had been frozen. His landlord said he could be flexible, given the circumstances, but the bills are still arriving. Phone. Car insurance. Renter’s insurance. Water. Electric. Student loans.

Then there are late fees.

Johnson and his wife, whose graduate-student stipends have not paused, are loading up their credit cards. “We’re looking at what it is going to take,” he said, “maybe reaching out to friends and family to borrow some money.”

Lindsay Ellis is a staff reporter. Follow her on Twitter @lindsayaellis, or email her at lindsay.ellis@chronicle.com. Follow Lily Jackson on Twitter at @lilygjack, or email her at lily.jackson@chronicle.com.