NYT | National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
American universities spent $60 billion in federal money on research and development in fiscal year 2023 alone. That’s more than 30 times as much as what they spent in the early 1950s, adjusted for inflation, when the research university system was just beginning to grow into the vast industry it is today. There is no other system like it in the world, in part because of the sprawling, decentralized nature of American higher education.