How ‘Summer Salaries’ Let Professors Profit from Federal Science Grants

Why should public funds allocated for scientific advancement be used to pad the already comfortable salaries of university professors?

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About the Author

Dr. Colin Wright is the CEO/Editor-in-Chief of Reality’s Last Stand, an evolutionary biology PhD, and Manhattan Institute Fellow. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, the New York Post, Newsweek, City Journal, Quillette, Queer Majority, and other major news outlets and peer-reviewed journals.

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Few Americans realize that when they pay taxes to support scientific research, a sizable portion of that money never funds a single experiment. Instead, billions flow into the coffers of universities under the vague banner of “indirect costs”—funds earmarked for lab upkeep, administrative overhead, and other institutional expenses. In February 2025, the Trump administration sought to upend this system by pressuring the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to cap indirect costs on research grants at 15 percent—a sizable cut from the current average of around 30 percent, with rates at elite institutions often much higher. The announcement was met with strong resistance, triggering lawsuits from 22 states and a coalition of universities, who cried foul over the potential $4 billion annual hit to their budgets. A federal judge has since halted the policy with a nationwide injunction, but the controversy has exposed a deeper issue: the public has little understanding of how their tax dollars, ostensibly meant for medical research, are actually spent.

While the proposed cap on indirect costs is intended to redirect funds to actual research, it barely scratches the surface on how universities exploit federal funding. Another lesser-known “summer salary” mechanism—which siphons a significant portion of these funds directly into the personal bank accounts of university professors—raises similar concerns about financial transparency and is a practice ripe for scrutiny.

Unlike indirect costs, which at least contribute to institutional infrastructure, summer salaries divert research money directly into faculty paychecks, effectively turning public research grants into personal financial windfalls. Though the debate over indirect costs has garnered public attention, the issue of summer salaries remains largely hidden. As more people question how federal research funding is allocated, this practice deserves a much closer look.