Association of American Universities Endorses Free Speech Statement

It's not about trusting the administration, it's that Save the Union and RenewRensselaer misconstrue data. The $75 million you cite is in public research grants, which have declined almost universally since Congress has not really increased public R&D grant spending and inflation is a thing. That does not include private funding, which brings RPI's total R&D above $100 million a year. Don't trust me? Trust the National Science Foundation which is, in my opinion, the most reputable source in this case.

https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingBySource&ds=herd

Please note the research per student will be represented with undergraduate + graduate for 2016 research and enrollment.

R&D of RPI & peer institutions: RPI. 2016: $101 million. 2009: $78 million. Research per student: $13,855/student Lehigh. 2016: $32 million. 2009: $34 million. Research per student: $4,495/student WPI. 2016: $38 million. 2009: $16 million. Research per student: $7,721/student Stony Brook: 2016: $230 million. 2009: $189 million. Research per student: $8,846/student Carnegie Mellon. 2016: $319 million. 2009: $218 million. Research per student: $22,849/student Boston University. 2016: $395 million. 2009: $285 million. Research per student: $11,969/student CWRU. 2016: $406 million. 2009: $418 million. Research per student: $34,807/student MIT. 2016: $946 million. 2009: $760 million. Research per student: $83,157/student UPenn. 2016: $1.3 billion. 2009: $758 million. Research per student: $52,406/student

As you can probably see, with the exception of the bottom three schools + Carnegie, most of the other sample schools in AAU do a lot of research, but it's a lot less than RPI relative to amount per student (in the other four). I'm not going to sit here and analyze every individual school, since AAU has over 60 member universities, but a quick glance shows that many of those schools have huge enrollments and are large state schools. They may do $300 million a year in research, but relative to size and number of professors it's not very impressive.

/r/RPI Thread Parent