Before launching an argument, I am not claiming that the overhead recovery bills many universities put forward and the way some are funneling undergraduate student tuition money to make up for shortfalls on scientific and engineering research, inflated by overbuilt administrations and signature facilities are justifiable. Certainly economies are to be had and the cycle of overhead build and administrative structure bloat can be addressed. But apparently the Trump administration has little clue about the relationship between the private sector and university research. A significant amount of both basic and patentable research occurs on university campuses and the private sector is extremely interested in this research. Indeed since Bayh-Dole, the pseudo-wall between proprietary and university research has broken down. The deal for decades was that universities did lots of research of value to the private sector at very little cost to the private sector as the grants and contracts were covered by the NSF, DOD, NIH, etc. To create a similar research infrastructure now would produce significant dislocations on both sides and surely increase the costs of research to the private sector.

The meat axe approach to public administration is every bit as bad as the sloppy and inefficient practices it pretends to discipline.

The Trump administration is pro-business? This is a good example of an “alternative fact” and “fake news”.