On April 8, hundreds of students and researchers affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, gathered on campus to demonstrate against cuts to federal and state funding for research and higher education.
Amid chants of “Kill the Cuts” and “Research Saves Lives,” Tanzil Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-American student researcher and a member of the Executive Board of the United Auto Workers (UAW) 4811, took the podium.
“If these cuts go through, we’re telling the world that there’s no opportunity left, that we won’t fight disease,” he said. “I don’t want to live in a country where the only people who can access higher education are independently wealthy, where we have given up on each other, and our future!”
The UAW 4811 represents around 48,000 academic workers, researchers, and postdocs in the University of California (UC) system. Of these, 24,000 – approximately 50% – are international students and researchers. At a time when hundreds of student visas have been revoked across the country, these students and researchers are anxious about the far-reaching consequences of the cuts; they could lose their jobs, putting their visa status and their continued presence in the country at risk.
The Proposed Cuts
The Trump administration has announced sweeping cuts to research funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH), which is the largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world.
The NIH announced that it will limit funding for indirect costs – overheads like administrative costs, facility maintenance, and equipment – to 15% for all the research programs it funds. This is a steep drop from 27%, which is the average, according to a NIH memo dated February 7.
Additionally, under Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, NIH has already terminated funding to 800 programs, including multiple HIV/AIDS research programs, an issue that is perceived to be more prevalent among LGBTQ+ communities. Programs related to COVID-19 and climate change have also been cut off, Nature reports.
The UC receives $2.6 billion in funding from the NIH, which means that it stands to lose hundreds of millions of funding this year alone if the cuts pass.
The proposed defunding of programs has prompted state governments, academic and scientific associations, and individual researchers to file suit against the Trump administration, and the matter will now be decided in the courts.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has also proposed an 8% reduction in funding for the UC and California State University (CSU) schools. For the UC, which is already undergoing a hiring freeze, this translates to a devastating reduction of $400 million in funding this year.
Anxiety Among International Students
Among the hundreds of demonstrators gathered on campus was Raj (name changed at request) from India, a first-year PhD student. student at Berkeley. They are an active member of the UAW 4811, who were handing out stickers urging demonstrators to sign a petition supporting their cause.
“I just came here to work on my materials,” they said. “I didn’t want to have to think about anything else, and I didn’t want to have to worry about any of this.”
But concerns about their career, and potentially their presence in this country, is not an option for Raj anymore.
Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has cracked down on hundreds of international students across the country. Students are waking up to emails saying their visa has been revoked, throwing their lives into turmoil. The reasons for visa revocation range from minor traffic infractions, or support for Palestine, to prior criminal charges for which they were acquitted. Across the UC, 90 international students’ visas have been revoked as of April 11. Of those, 23 were affiliated with UC Berkeley, according to the school’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs.
Students like Raj, working in scientific research at universities, are fearful about their employment. The cuts could lead to the shuttering of multiple research programs that students depend on for employment, grants, and institutional support for their research. For international students, the stakes of being unemployed are higher, as they have a limited number of unemployment days on their visas.
“Our existence in this country is tied entirely to what we do, in terms of our work,” said Raj. “So that is a big source of worry and concern in the conversations we’re having.”
A counterpunch to the cuts: Senate Bill 829
The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development states that California alone generates $414 billion through its biotechnology sector, and employs more than 466,000 employees, including thousands of international workers. The funding cuts could translate into ripple effects on the biotechnology industry and other STEM fields, creating a shrunken job market for many international students and researchers who will graduate in the next few years.
“Does that biotech industry exist without NIH funding public research?” asked Raj. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
To protect scientific research in California, and the industries it nurtures, Democratic state senator Scott Weiner from San Francisco drafted and introduced Senate Bill 829 as a counterpunch to proposed federal cuts.
The Bill calls for the creation of the California Institute for Scientific Research, and an associated fund that would “award grants and make loans to public or private research companies, universities, institutes, and organizations for scientific research and development, in specific areas of research, including, but not limited to, biomedical, behavioral, and climate research.”
“Scientific research is absolutely essential to our efforts to lower costs for families, respond to the threats of climate change, and protect the health of our children. For California to thrive, we must defend science,” said Weiner in a press release dated March 27, 2025.
“It’s not political”
Back at the demonstration, an international graduate student researcher addressed her American peers: “I put my faith in you today. Will you stand together with your international coworkers? They can target individuals, but they cannot come after 50% of the graduate researchers at the University of California!”
Raj, though anxious about their status as an immigrant, is optimistic as a scientist. They believe that a good-faith argument that demonstrates the value of scientific research to the well-being of the community will be met with a rational reaction.
“Everyone wants to be able to keep working on these crucial problems that face the country, and face the world,” they said. “It’s not political. It’s not partisan. We just want to be able to keep serving the community, and that is what we’re trying to do.”
This article was produced in partnership with URL Collective.
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