Federal tax dollars funneled to the National Science Foundation (NSF) are paying for researchers at Columbia University to conduct a study to test “how people’s curiosity about their own errors may improve their learning and memory,” according to a new report from Open the Books (OTB), a Florida-based nonprofit government watchdog.

The $745,323 NSF grant was one of “hundreds of grants to elite schools from fiscal year 2025 of dubious merit. The majority were first awarded under the Biden administration, but they continued to receive funding last year,” the OTB report said. The grants are all included under the federal government’s massive $22 billion annual funding to the nation’s elite research seeking advancements in the medical, energy, climate, and military fields.

But because of how the overall funding is provided to the schools, huge amounts of tax dollars end up paying for such questionable studies, as well as maintenance and operational costs associated with the day-to-day operation of the academic institutions. The result, according to OTB, is that “research grants are a mixed bag in terms of taxpayer value. For every project focused on vaccine development or energy efficiency, there is another that studies the artistic expression of technical rock climbing or cultural resistance to bug-eating.”

Among numerous other examples cited by the OTB report were these:

• Harvard University: $2.5 million for “equitable and accessible research-based testing … to reduce the impacts of the warming climate on marginalized communities.” The study’s description explains that “climate change disproportionately affects individuals and communities that experience social and environmental vulnerabilities and discrimination.” (Awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS)
• Johns Hopkins University:$3.9 million for “characterizing intersecting sexual, gender, and race-based stigmas affecting communities of U.S. transgender women and cisgender men who are sexually active with men.” (Awarded by HHS)
• Duke University: $784,147 to build robots that mimic the movements of mantis shrimp, marketed with a software that helps “diverse undergraduates access research experiences in an equitable and transparent way” and helps “enhance access and equity for undergraduate research experience.” (Awarded by NSF)
• Vanderbilt University: $115,696for a project that “explores how developmental norms presumed to be generalizable are reproduced, challenged, and sometimes disrupted within scientific and activist communities.” The study “will generate new conceptual tools for understanding development in a non-Euro-American context” and “use critical theory in mainstream science, policy, and public debate.” (Awarded by NSF) 

Other findings from the OTB report include evidence that elite schools that receive substantial federal research funding are thereby able to fatten their endowments rather than spending them down on maintenance, construction, and daily operational costs.

“Our review of 20 elite private schools also found a moderate correlation between per-student federal funding and per-student endowment growth. Universities that receive the most taxpayer money are the most likely to grow their own private reserve of cash, too. Lavish federal funding and preferential tax treatment allows them to avoid dipping into their endowments on research and other costs of doing business. Today, Ivy League and other elite schools are sitting on endowments of up to $55 billion thanks to [federal research funding’s] generous support,” the report pointed out.

The top 10 recipient schools in 2025 for federal research funding were led by Johns Hopkins University ($2.6 billion), followed by the California Institute of Technology ($2.5 billion), MIT ($1.8 billion), Columbia University ($846 million), University of Pennsylvania ($819 million), Washington University of St. Louis ($760 million), Stanford University ($756 million), Yale University ($737 million), Duke University ($717 million), and Emory University ($620 million).

Endowments among the top schools grew on average between 2018 and 2025 by 70%, OTB explained, while the endowments at Vanderbilt and Emory more than tripled during the same period. Johns Hopkins enjoyed the largest increase during the period, coming in with a 228% increase in its endowment.

The OTB report also pointed out that “when the federal government funds research projects at Harvard or Yale, those schools do not have to spend as much of their own funds on research or even overhead. They can instead avoid withdrawing money from their endowments. Those appreciating assets keep them among the richest institutions in the country even as they splash out for big administrative salaries, building upgrades, athletics, art galleries, and much more.”

The $22 billion total in the 2025 federal budget represents a slight decrease compared to 2024 — and is a result of President Donald Trump’s partially following through on his 2024 campaign promise to stop sending tax dollars to “woke” schools. The $22 billion was the lowest annual total since 2018, when adjusted for inflation.

But Trump has yet to complete the needed actions to fulfill that campaign promise, OTB reported.

“Trump has yet to fully undo the spending spike that began during his first presidential term and continued during President Joe Biden’s administration. Private colleges receive 40% more federal research funding today than during an average year under President Barack Obama, even adjusted for inflation. Some of the money helps fund weapons development, disease research, and more. It also forces taxpayers to spend tens of billions of dollars every year on overhead costs such as laptops and garbage collection,” OTB wrote.