Over the past month, the Trump administration terminated $773 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) grants supporting STEM education research and innovation. Ever on brand, DOGE reported that this move saved taxpayers millions in “wasteful DEI” spending even as critics warned that the “cuts threaten the next generation of innovators.” Ed Week, for example, flagged cuts to awards for computer science education, pre-K–12 STEM learning, and STEM teacher support in high-need districts.
Curious as to what exactly was in those hundreds of canceled programs, I dug into the database of terminated NSF grants. Some certainly had strong indicia of a DEI focus. Multiple universities, for instance, lost funding for “anti-bias mathematics teaching” in K–12 classrooms, and a canceled Villanova project advanced a “Social Justice STEM Pedagogies framework” for Grades 7–12. At Florida International University, a now-terminated grant supported high school physics teachers via “inclusive and equitable practices,” “communal classroom cultures,” and “physics identity development for women and MRE [minoritized racial/ethnic groups].”
These projects may have been effective in doing what they set out to do—and it’s nearly always disruptive and fiscally inefficient to cancel any grant midstream. But regardless of what you or I may think about their merits, there was probably no universe in which programs centered on DEI ends were going to be safe from the red pen of an anti-DEI administration.
Yet many canceled grants were not visibly directed toward DEI goals, but rather toward core academic purposes. The RAND Corporation lost a grant for a researcher-practitioner partnership to create and pilot materials, lesson plans, and educator professional development to expand access to computer science for prekindergartners. Vanderbilt had planned a new AI education program for elementary schoolers in rural areas. WestEd’s revoked funding would have enabled its collaboration with Milwaukee high schools and a local technical college to develop dual enrollment math courses. The City University of New York lost support for a wastewater-based epidemiology training program designed to improve students’ career readiness and boost community preparedness against infectious diseases.
How could these efforts—and so many more like them—have been discarded as “wasteful DEI”? I’m no insider, but here are my best guesses: the computer science initiative partly aimed to boost “participation among… underrepresented groups in STEM,” the AI project included “culturally relevant instructional methods,” the advanced math courses also served as “a lever for equity,” and the epidemiology program was developed in response to “declining minority student retention and graduation rates in STEM.”
Once again, DOGE is taking its witch hunt to absurd extremes. Reckless policy by “Ctrl+F”—simply searching for the presence of terms like “equity”—is resulting in the abrupt termination of efforts to expand children’s access to STEM education, increase opportunities for accelerated learning, and enhance students’ career readiness. The administration ought to be able to recognize the difference between a project with DEI at its center and a project description that happens to include a few buzzwords.
And these losses are not insignificant. American STEM education is very much in need of expansion and innovation. Among OECD countries, U.S. fifteen-year-olds perform among the top third for science by only a narrow margin, and alarmingly, they consistently score in the bottom third for math. Americans are well aware of this mediocrity; only 28 percent of us believe that the country’s K–12 STEM education is either “above average” or “the best.”
The issue is not merely academic. Having more students engaged in STEM coursework means a wider pipeline to STEM careers. STEM education and career preparation are not zero-sum endeavors; increasing participation among underrepresented groups doesn’t preclude anyone else’s participation. Instead, more access to STEM career paths can translate into higher earnings for those individuals, as well as a larger talent pool to maintain and grow the country’s scientific and economic global competitiveness.
It’s not too late to walk back on some of the recent NSF actions. It wouldn’t be unprecedented for this administration to rescind a decision about education funding, or for a court to order the reinstatement of grants. Alternatively, an additional round of review could focus more closely on whether each grant program’s core goals would expand or strengthen STEM education. Or the government could reinitiate the competitive grantmaking process, and ex-grantees could reapply with largely the same goals (and fewer hot-button words).
Cutting efforts to improve STEM education will be a self-inflicted wound, not a savings. And the long-term costs risk harm not only to the “next generation of innovators,” but to all of us.
