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When the director of a small regional science nonprofit sat down last week to pay a few bills, she got a shock. 

In the fall, the group won a National Science Foundation grant of nearly $1.5 million to teach elementary and middle-schoolers about climate-related issues in the U.S. Gulf Coast. The eagerly anticipated award came through NSF鈥檚 program.

But when she checked her NSF funding dashboard, the balance was $1.

Educators and researchers nationwide have been suffering similar shocks as the Trump administration raises a microscope 鈥� and in some cases an ax 鈥� to billions of dollars in federal research grants and contracts. On Monday, it said it had canceled dozens of Institute of Education Sciences contracts, worth an estimated $881 million and covering nearly the institute鈥檚 entire research portfolio, according to several sources. 

Last week, the NSF through billions of dollars in already-awarded grants in search of keywords that imply the researchers address gender ideology, diversity, equity and inclusion 鈥� all themes by the administration.

The moves 鈥� as well as a broader of all federal aid, which a judge has temporarily reversed 鈥� have spread uncertainty, fear and anger through the education research community. 

鈥淚t is incredibly exhausting,鈥� said the research director of a national nonprofit with several active NSF grants and contracts. She asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely. 鈥淚t’s definitely absorbing all of our time right now.鈥� 

Interviews with more than a dozen key stakeholders found that researchers with studies already in the field are being forced to suddenly pause their research, not knowing if or when it will resume. Nearly all spoke only on condition of anonymity, fearing that speaking out publicly could jeopardize future funding.

While the administration has said the moves are an attempt to rein in federal spending that doesn鈥檛 comport with its priorities and values, it has offered no explanation for cuts to bedrock, non-political research around topics like math, literacy, school attendance, school quality and student mental health.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to believe this administration is serious about stopping the alarming decline of U.S. student achievement and competitiveness when it puts the kibosh on federally funded research and access to data,鈥� said Robin Lake, director of the at Arizona State University. 鈥淗ow will policy makers and educators know the bright spots to replicate and what practices are harmful? How will parents make informed choices? How will teachers know the best ways to teach math and prepare students for the jobs of the future?鈥�

CRPE currently receives no federal funding, she said, so the recent moves won鈥檛 affect it immediately. But its ongoing work tracking pandemic recovery, studying the impact of social media, AI and school choice rely on 鈥渁 broad national infrastructure of data, subject experts, and rigorous field studies,鈥� Lake said. 鈥淭he broad-based destruction of this infrastructure will affect us all and will cripple our efforts to make American students competitive in the world economy.鈥�

Ulrich Boser, CEO of , a Washington, D.C.-based organization that works in education research, likened the recent moves to remodeling a house to make it more efficient. 鈥淲ould you just cancel all of your contracts with gas, water, electricity, and then just redo them? It’s not a logical way of doing things. It’s just haphazard.鈥�

An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The Learning Agency, which has contracts to, among other things, provide a that answers questions about IES鈥檚 What Works Clearinghouse, this week warning that GOP-backed plans to shut down the Education Department could mean the loss or delay of more than $70 billion in funding for students. 

Boser recalled that the recent debacle with college aid took place simply because the Education Department tried to . 鈥淚t caused massive delays, most harmful to the kids we care about most.鈥� Now take that dynamic, he said, and imagine what gutting an entire Cabinet-level agency could do. 

The recent NSF moves to review grant language are already having an effect: An academic dean at a leading graduate school of education said researchers at the institution are now reframing new funding proposals 鈥渋n ways that allow them to ask the questions that they want鈥� without being scrutinized 鈥� or eliminated altogether 鈥� 鈥渂ased on a 鈥楥trl-F review鈥� process.鈥� Ctrl-F is a keyboard combination used to quickly search a document for keywords.

鈥淚 don’t think there’s an upside to the chaos and uncertainty that is being experienced in real time,鈥� the dean said.

Likewise, the director of a research center that has long focused on K-12 education reform said the new administration has brought turmoil to a community that typically performs 鈥渘on-ideological, empirical鈥� research on issues like literacy and math.

 鈥淚 feel like every day there’s new confusion,鈥� he said, adding that restrictions on DEI could also chill a basic function of education research: studying the results of interventions on diverse student populations 鈥� students of different races, ethnic backgrounds, economic levels and geographic locations.

鈥淲hat 鈥楧EI鈥� means is really very ambiguous,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o if you are studying something and you look at differential outcomes between groups, is that DEI? I don’t know.鈥� 

A 鈥楳an-Made Disaster鈥�

The federal government funds billions of dollars in research each year for K-12 and higher education, but rarely has it scrutinized practitioners to this extent, said the leader of a nonprofit that advocates for better education research.聽

She described conversations with scholars who are operating via grants through NSF, IES and elsewhere who 鈥渏ust have no idea what’s going on 鈥� they can’t get through to program officers. Sometimes program officers have been put on administrative leave. It’s just a huge amount of chaos, and overall [it] just creates this chilling effect鈥� for both current grantees and future ones.

鈥淭his is a man-made disaster,鈥� she said.

Mike England, an NSF spokesman, said the agency 鈥渋s working expeditiously to conduct a comprehensive review of our projects, programs and activities to be compliant with the existing executive orders.鈥� He referred a journalist to an outlining recent executive orders 鈥渁nd their impact on the U.S. National Science Foundation community.鈥�

An Education Department official on Tuesday said any IES contracts required by law will be re-issued for new competition, but Mark Schneider, who served as the agency鈥檚 director in Trump鈥檚 first term, said in an interview that the current chaos represents an opportunity to 鈥渕ake something good鈥� in the research realm.

鈥淲hat we should really do is say, 鈥榃e’ve fallen into a rut for decades in the way we go about doing business,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥溾�榃e are not focused on the highest reward. We’re not focused on mission-critical work.鈥� 鈥� 

Now a nonresident senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Schneider has already suggested breaking the Education Department up and distributing its work to other agencies. He said the new administration has the opportunity to refocus to provide 鈥渄ata that the nation needs.鈥�

Schneider noted that the National Center for Education Research last year handed out 42 research grants worth well over $100 million. 鈥淚f we look at those grants, how many of those are really mission-critical?鈥� He predicted that few focus on improving literacy instruction, which recent NAEP results suggest is in crisis.

The department did not release a list of zeroed-out programs, but a document online indicates that they include research covering a wide range of topics including literacy but also math, science, mental health, attendance, English acquisition and others. Also on the chopping block: contracts for The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (), a test given to students every four years in 64 countries and a key indicator of U.S. competitiveness.

鈥業 just don鈥檛 want more asterisk years鈥�

The long-term impact of research pauses could be devastating, said the senior advisor to a research advocacy group 鈥� comparable to the interruption of the COVID epidemic, which shut many researchers out of schools for months, diluting the effectiveness of their research and, in some cases, requiring them to insert asterisks for the years when no data was available.

鈥淚 just don’t want more asterisk years,鈥� she said. 

Several researchers said an even bigger fear is the prospect of key education, labor and other data sets such as NAEP being made unavailable. While NAEP data collection was unaffected by the recent moves, contracts to analyze the data and report it publicly were canceled, to be offered to new bidders. So far, U.S. Education Department data haven鈥檛 been affected, but public health data 鈥� including guidance on contraception, a fact sheet about HIV and transgender people; and lessons on building supportive school environments for transgender and nonbinary students 鈥� have from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 website due to President Trump鈥檚 order to strip 鈥済ender ideology鈥� from websites and contracts.

Amy O’Hara, a research professor at Georgetown University鈥檚 McCourt School for Public Policy, cautioned that removing data from public websites would 鈥渉ave a chilling effect on what can be done, what can be measured, what services we deliver to our communities.鈥�

Even if some research funds are restored and researchers can go back to work, O鈥橦ara said, she worries about the uncertainty created at the collegiate graduate school level, as well as for researchers who are early in their careers. 鈥淚f their funding is disrupted and their access to data is disrupted, they have an incentive to walk away,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd if they walk away and find other work to do, what is going to be compelling to bring them back?鈥�

CRPE鈥檚 Lake put it more bluntly: 鈥淚鈥檓 a very pragmatic researcher and I believe the feds could do much better in how they fund and support research. But a wholesale end to federal investment in education research feels like a cop-out. The hard but necessary work is making smarter investments.鈥�

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