If you find yourself wondering, wait, what, why are we funding Australian universities? You are likely not alone.
Apparently, the U.S. government has been sending $6oo million/yr to universities in Australia to subsidize various college research programs. The Trump administration has told Australia the funding will likely end.
The Australian university system is in a state of panic, telling their government to declare a “state of emergency”.
One particular quote from within the Sky News article below seemingly encapsulates the mindset of the situation in the land down under:
AUSTRALIA […] Last week after it was revealed the universities had been asked to justify their funding, the National Tertiary Education Union called on the government to “guarantee Australian researchers would be protected”.
“The federal government must push back on the Trump administration’s blatant foreign interference in our independent research in the strongest possible terms,” NTEU president Alison Barnes said. (Full Article)
One would think the NTEU would be happy for an enhanced opportunity for “independent research.”
Alas, it appears Mr/Ms Alison Barnes doesn’t quite understand the nature of the word “independent” within the relationship. A little funny.
Interesting when a foreign country gets upset and feels it’s entitled to my tax money.☹️
Oh snap… I didn’t know we were supposed to financing everyone’s universities. When did I miss that rule? I’m so ashamed of my lack of world needs.
Remember, almost every Republican in Congress had to vote for this $$$ and the hundreds of billions going to Democrat NGOs that fund Lawfare, ANTIFA and BLM!
Damn straight! Worse than the Dims.
The Great Awakening. Most of Congress gives not one whit about the lives of the American People.
Long ago co-opted for the use of others.
Judge rules defunding of Australia Universities is unconstitutional in 1..2..3….
This just in!
Judge Reinhold declared a TRO on it.
I suspect some people are going to miss your comedic gold…I laughed hard!
LOL.
You are showing your age, Raised!
Mine, too.
😂😂
What…no picture of Phoebe?
I was waiting for something about Phoebe.
Here Ya Go –
Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness.
What the hell don’t we finance around the world, while some of our people are STARVING and HOMELESS.
Most of our kids can’t really read..
MIC uses the money to buy influence, start color revolutions, and wars. You can understand Oz getting onboard with COVID Fascism if they are being funded by us. Its abhorrent!
Alice in StuntedLand.
Quaratine the Healthy.
PRINT $5 Trillion of counterfeit money to buy up U.S. Government Debt Paper, so they can spend it on their friends.
Alice in Squanderland sounds good too….
Uncountable up votes!
And millions of Americans in despair because American Politicians and (Globalist) Corporations strip-mined the land of money and talent.
Private Globalist Profit funded by Public American Debt. Total Public and Private now exceeding $100 Trillion.
Tell me again who benefited from the last 30 years of destroying the American Economy?
Wow, when Sundance said, “there are trillions at stake”, I had no idea he meant in Australia and everywhere else in the world (except the flooded mountains of NC or the homes set on fire in Maui and LA and wherever else they said “too bad, so sad”) during the Biden administration.
Why? Well it’s because Republicans in Congress actually think that their job is to give our money away to foreigners!
I say if they don’t like the US cutting off the research funding to Australia, then let Australia cut off their research funding in the US. Wait a minute while I stop laughing.
Their pretending of cooperation, etc. is just ridiculous. They have enjoyed the free ride long enough.
There are a lot of people who are “out of sorts” because the money spigot is getting turned off, too bad for them. This should have never happened to begin with, and a lot of political critters over the last 30 plus years need to account for this.
This is very disturbing to learn that our Constitutional Republic has been manipulated in such a way that we wasted money all over the world to drive inflation higher and higher only in an effort to destroy our own society, and hurt our own citizens.
Clearly these are acts of treason that warrant prosecutions of all those involved, but because this involves career politicians we know nothing will ever come from this.
How can anyone trust our election system or the people in office.
There’s a prescribed punishment for treason that is long, long overdue
👁️👁️
If only there was Americans in America who felt that way but alas there aren’t many Americans in America anymore…
It just boggles the mind that both sides of the aisle voted for such as this for all these years. All our government did was sit and get fat and grow. No wonder we are $37 trillion in the hole. Too bad we can’t take it out of the electeds’ hide because it is their fault and that of the lobbyists.
Yes, everyone has to return their ill gotten gain! That’ll balance the budget
How many even know where trillions of dollars have gone? Not the Pentagon – not the Navy – not FJB, not the Treasury with their payouts without even a category, not Social Security, not CONgress….and on and on and on.
They still have their jobs. If they were in private business they would be at least fired and in many cases prosecuted for embezzlement.
We can start with their benefits and pensions.
This is their thinking:
“Those uppity Colonists have to be brought down”.
The free ride on the Yankee Dollar is over!
Thank you President Trump!!!
Good! Am glad that they consider it a “state of emergency”.
Enough!
It is so shocking they are going to have an emergency meeting. Probably with voodoo dolls resembling Trump.
this is comedy gold.
I shudder to think what kind of research we’ve been funding.
Apparently teaching cats to dress up for dinner!
I’m thinking that’s money well spent.
bioweapons….surveillance state monthly payments.
both likely
Stop giving them our money.
By all appearances, PDJT has timed this with the Chinese surface action group that sailed between Australia and NZ recently. Neither AUS nor NZ military detected the SAG. It has been reported, but not confirmed, that the SAG conducted a live fire exercise.
He’s trying to apply added pressure on those gov’ts – stir the internal pot as it were.
I’d like to know what in the heck is supposedly being researched over there?
Transitioning kangaroos
Now I don’t care who you are…..that’s funny! 🤣
Stop that, you are giving them ideas…
Does anyone know if a male kangaroo has a pouch?
It’s called a fannicus packium
Queer kangaroos!
It is becoming more and more obvious by the day how our tax dollars were used for years to gain power and influence for the political and business elites of this country. Meanwhile the 99% of us have been feeling like our wealth has been somehow drained from us without having a clue as to where our money actually went. They stole not just our tax dollars to make themselves extremely rich, but they created inflation to steal even more from us in the form of higher prices of everything.
The issue of giving millions of dollars to Australian universities for research is just one more in a long line of theft of the tax dollars American tax payers must work hard for. This entire system is rotten to the core. It appears that it has been run by former Presidents other than Trump, and supported by an army of unelected federal bureaucrats with help from the uniparty in Congress and liberal activist judges. Thus all three branches of our government ARE BROKEN.
The Fed owns the money supply of the US. Any single owner of a commodity, given their monopoly, can control the price of that commodity.
The Fed functions in secret, gains profits from insider trading, and by controlling our money supply can cause the US economy to either thrive or collapse by virtue of their policies. Currently the Fed wants to make it harder for Trump to succeed in his economic plan by not decreasing interest rates, something the Fed was eager to do when Obama or Biden were President.
I think the Fed has controlled our money supply for long enough. Their role in our economy has been extremely detrimental to the people of America while it has made the Fed owners some of the wealthiest men on planet earth.
The Fed, like any other central bank, desires to take the next step in controlling Americans through CBDCs which are likely to be the end of liberty and the end of our Constitutional Republic.
Before that decision is made, I believe Americans should understand the role of the Fed and consider the benefits and potential risks of Congress repealing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
In 1913 $1.00=100 pennies. In 2025, $1.00=$.02. That’s how much the value of our currency has been destroyed by corrupt excess government spending, Wall Street banks causing global financial meltdowns, the fiat currency, and the Federal Reserve.
Reducing the federal debt is helpful, but because of the Federal Reserve it can never be reduced to zero, because that would mean the end of money. All of our money supply is created by, and dependent upon, indebtedness to the Federal Reserve.
While we are liberating ourselves from corrupt and thieving politicians, bureaucrats, judges, and Wall Street banks, we might as well go for real liberation with a return to sound money and repeal of the Federal Reserve Act.
Australia and others who are losing money and power due to cleaning out the corruption of our government are going to have to live with the pain until they find their own solutions for it. Anything less than that is a sign of either infantile behavior, psychopathy, or both.
Have you followed Bill Still’s plan for paying down debt with United States Notes?
Andrew Jackson utilized this system to great effect. No Federal Reserve then and
today, it would eliminate the Fed Reserve Debt System entirely!
Consider this from 12/16/2024 :
12:36 Only Way to Fix the National Debt !!!, 4611
Thanks SD for all you have done and continue to do!!
Godspeed!
Just when I think our government couldn’t be worse, I get a story like this. And realize that there are likely many more stories out there like this.
Thousands upon thousands of
Pretty sure an Aussie judge will declare this unconstitutional and demand US give them ALL the money … with interest
I call this “the win of the day.” I wonder how many bureaucrats received free trips to AUS. I hear that Byron Bay is beautiful during the summer.
Bad Kitty
When did the US start handing out significant sums to Australian universities? Is this new or has it been used to buy influence for years? Has anything significant for the world, much less the US, come of the grants? Who polices them to make sure the funds aren’t being diverted for politics? I’m very interested in seeing examples of some of the larger grants — what they were supposed to accomplish; how much went for overhead; what were the results? who did they benefit? were funds “passed” along to political groups?; are the grants connected to US intelligence operations or military preparedness, etc.?
Sorry, all of those records were lost or deleted. Accidentally, of course.
absolutely on target…I worked at a scientific research institute in the early 80’s and learned then that scientists will provide the desired answer for any research project for money.
That experience made Covid and Fauci pretty easy to read.
I’m sorry that was your experience, I did 25 years.
It was interesting. I think the desire to learn, understand and find the answer is a real passion, and certain people just need to be doing that. Absolutely most research is authentic and conducted by diligent and principled people and has changed things for the better…but when one has to survive on grant money from NIH or some other granting agency one will sometime find a way to keep on researching…if that makes any sense. I also spent a few semesters in law school around that time, and that was a real eye opener. The result of what and how law was being taught resulted in all these appalling lawyers and judges we have now. My dad was an attorney who actually tried to solve problems and help people. There are a few of those left, thank goodness.
It’s not just Australian universities that were getting our foreign aid. So was Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, out of the USAID budget.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/johns-hopkins-cuts-staff-trump-usaid-rcna196512
Ok, Baltimore is close to a third world country, but at least foreign aid should be going outside the territorial limits of the US.
Johns Hopkins whined that it had to lay off 2000 people after USAID was cut. Then, it revealed over 1,900 of the layoffs were of foreigners living outside the US. Sorry I can’t remember the source or else I’d state it.
Oh no!! Tie me kangaroo down, sport.
Triggered…here ya go:
My Kiwi dad used to sing that to me….
Jumping walkabout wallaby there’s no telling where the money went.
“Watch me wallaby’s feed mate…there a dangerous breed mate, so watch me wallaby’s feed”….
Lol!
Let them fund their own universities! Geez
Does this funding help explain why Australia seemed to be ruled by a leftist-totalitarian mindset during Covid? Was that part of the deal?
They were researching how far you can push a population of sheep.🐑
Shady to say the least. I think we’ll find that the primary “benevolent” funder of Australian Universities is going to be the Dept. of Defense…through cut-out Defense Contractors. How much of that appropriated money got to Australia is going to be an issue as well.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m guessing that this investment paid some dividends. Canada just bought a Missile Tracking systems supposedly state of the art, from Australia just last week. Apparently, the UK is interested in the very same system. Presumably, even the US was in line to receive it, but the current status at the DOD is “pass and audit before you get new toys.”
The Canadian media is saying that the gnome, Carney, pulled a fast one on the US by jumping the line and getting the Tracking system before the US did. However, facts suggest the US pulled out voluntarily, and we likely financed the research in the first place.
600 million is a lot of money, but we spend a lot more than that on graduate programs. Usually, the university takes half of anything a professor brings in, the professor gets a quarter and the graduate student gets a quarter. It can vary between universities. Most of the cost increase in universities have been due to more administrators.
A few years ago I taught in a local university for a year, teaching four classes a semester while a professor went on a sabbatical. I liked working with students and they were well aware of what they were paying. While I was teaching, the university added another layer of deans on top of the existing deans. All of these deans had offices, secretaries, housing and health insurance provided, but none of them ever set foot in a classroom. I had about 100 students all told which was over 5 million in revenue, though I saw about a student and a half. Most of their tuition went to administrators or buildings, but the administration grows the fastest.
The universities need to become far more cost effective — no more can you afford 1.8 students per administrator like Yale or Stanford. Nothing goes up for 10% per year forever.
“Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover”
Love that song 👊🏼
Couldn’t have happened to what many Aussies see as “A Bunch of Bludgers” (for the most part).
BUT, did you note that there is no mention of exactly what research was allegedly being carried out (purportedly to the benefit of the USA)? I guess that may surface at some later date…
Following on from the ‘entitled’ inhabitants of universities, we also have the CSIRO (originally CSIR) – another mob living their dream on taxpayer dollars.
There are ‘rorters’ to the left of us, ‘rorters’ to the right of us – and we’re (the ordinary Ozzie plebs) stuck in the middle.
Just my humble opinion, of course.
Why fund ‘Universities” at all? The lower grades produce graduates who can’t read. What is college going to do with them?
Well,, Harvard has a remedial math program now for Freshmen.
Face the Facts. It is US influence-peddling. Plain and Simple.
Stopping it is a necessity.
The sooner the USA starts making things of value instead of juicing up “Paper Asset” prices via Financialization and Money Printing/Clicking and Debt, the sooner you can get back to being an Independent Nation.
They do “independent research”, funded by the US government.
I see that the EU is making up for the cutoff in USAID.
“EU Boosts Support for Independent Media in Ukraine with an Additional €10 Million”
Nothing says that your media is independent like foreign countries paying the salaries of the people who work in it.
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ukraine/eu-boosts-support-independent-media-ukraine-additional-%E2%82%AC10-million_en?s=232
10 million EI
Chump change
It’s not just our leftist scumbags we are funding…
It’s the ENTIRE worlds leftist scumbags we are funding…
Long past time they started funding US….
We need a leftist tax…one which fulfills what they propose for others…
If you support the left you get the honor of paying 100 percent income tax….
NO MERCY!
Have Australian judges filed an injunction yet ?
“The federal government must push back on the Trump administration’s blatant foreign interference in our independent research in the strongest possible terms…”
Blatant foreign interference?
If it wasn’t for our blatant foreign interference of pouring cash into your hands, you probably wouldn’t have started your absolutely NOT INDEPENDENT research in the first place.
Foreign policy=foreign interference?
It’s our money.
I’ve got your foreign interference right here….in the strongest possible terms.
Alexander Downer collaborated in the Russia Russia Hoax. Helped take down Papadopoulos.
Kevin Rudd called Pres Trump the ‘village Idiot” about 2 or 3 years ago.
Such deeds dont go unpunished
Mr/Ms Alison Barnes:
” A DINGO ATE MY BABY”
Gonna bet it is used for climate change promotion and other liberal dogma.
23 March 2025 12:33 AM
We were warned. Repeatedly. F- around and find out. That is the mantra of Maga America and its self-described Golden Age.
Australia remains sovereign, but American money comes with American strings.
Or it doesn’t come at all.
Our frugal friends have reportedly cut a $600 million economic cord to half a dozen Australian universities … and counting.
There could not be a clearer case of Go Woke, Go Broke. Feeling particularly cruel, I might describe it as textbook.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been begged to initiate an emergency meeting with the US President, although that carries the risk of making the situation worse.
Can you imagine the phone call?
He’ll go in asking Trump for cash and come out with Australia listed on Ebay.
I notice that no one has gone knocking at Ambassador Rudd’s door for help after his previous failure to do anything other than watch the trade situation deteriorate.
This ‘wait and see’ approach is popular with creatures hatched from the Canberra nest and it hasn’t worked out so well.
What a shock.
Business people like Donald Trump are proactive. Politicians are impossible to shift, like shower scum before a rental inspection.
To translate the situation, America has said to Australia, ‘You are expensive and bad at your job.’ Australia has replied, ‘You paid us this week, therefore you will pay us next week.’ Anyone with a job in the real world knows how this story ends.
According to the ABC, Australia is America’s largest research partner – but that was under a Democrat regime that liked to invest in foreign countries as a type of ‘soft power’. Having universities across the West champion identical nonsense gave the Democrats an artificial consensus that far too many gullible press outlets mistook as a grassroots cultural movement instead of a cultural product.
The funding cut was ‘flagged’ when an outreach questionnaire was sent to Australian universities in a similar spirit to that memo asking American public servants to justify their existence.
Included in the list:
‘Does the project encourage partners to adopt policies and take action to respect their national sovereignty and culture, strengthen patriotic values, and reduce dependence on external institutions?’
Probably not.
‘Does your organisation encourage free speech and encourage open debate and free sharing of information?’
Yikes.
‘Does your organisation have a clear policy prohibiting any collaboration, funding, or support for entities that advocate or implement policies contrary to US Government interests, national security, and sovereignty?’
Oh oh.
‘Does this project demonstrate clear cost-effectiveness and take active measures to mitigate waste, fraud, and abuse?’
This is rage bait for the average academic.
‘Can you confirm that your organisation has not received any funding from the PRC (including Confucius Institutes and/or partnered with Chinese state or non-state actors), Russia, Cuba, or Iran?’
‘Can you confirm that this is no DEI project or DEI elements of the project?’
‘Can you confirm this is not a climate or environmental justice project or include such elements?’
‘Does this project support US energy independence or reduce global reliance on hostile countries for energy resources?’
‘Does this project take appropriate measures to protect women and to defend against gender ideology as defined in the below Executive Order?’
Our chancellors are being picked up and having their noses rubbed in puddles of misdeeds.
Naturally, America’s desire to make sure its money isn’t spent on research projects that work against their national interest has been labelled as ‘verging on foreign interference’.
Which definition of ‘foreign interference’ are we using?
Is it not ‘foreign interference’ for a nation to spend $600 million in another country’s education sector?
Surely withdrawing that money is the opposite of foreign interference?
It is more likely that Australian universities support foreign interference so long as it adheres to their preferred politics.
And how is the general public taking the news?
Remember, these are the people accosted by out-and-proud communists polluting the pavement alongside universities. People who duck-and-weave around aggressive pro-Palestinian activists who cannot name the river or the sea on their placards. Feminists who want women to lose to men in every sport. Anarchists who beg the state to control what people can say. Anti-capitalists living off their capitalist parents. Individuals with three useless degrees who want strangers to pay off their student debt…
As you can imagine, ordinary people are still laughing. Some are grabbing popcorn.
There is not a lot of sympathy for the smug academic class because they have behaved so poorly for so long.
They spent decades branding the working class as idiots, rednecks, and evil capitalists and then lied about their ancestors. Why should anyone have empathy for universities in their current state? They are sanatoriums for the Woke mind virus.
America has been clear:
‘The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.’ – Memo to one Australian university project, as reported by The Guardian.
It would be less destructive to pile all the money Australia spends on the academic class onto a barge, tow it into the centre of Sydney Harbour, and set it on fire as part of the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
The only problem I can foresee with the defunding of academia is that Jim Chalmers will take a red pen to his freshly printed Budget and re-assign it to universities because there is no chance that the over-paid leadership will take a pay cut to fill the hole.
Education Minister Jason Clare has come up with one of his only sensible comments, observing that America can fund ‘whatever research it wants to fund’.
He followed it with a Rudd-esque comment: ‘But we will continue to make the case to the US that collaborative research benefits both the US and Australia’s interests.’
Look we could offer some advice on how to convince America to fund Australian universities, but why should anyone help them?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/03/a-600-million-education-in-reality/
*Most Australians didn’t/wouln’t know about the US funding our Marxist universities and welcome this funding cut. Go woke, go broke.
Nice post, a little long but a good read.
All I can think of is how money like that could be spent on the veterans who are living on the street.
Its behind a paywall so it had to be posted in total
And BTW Pres Trump is NOT TAKING ALLAHBANESE’S CALLS!
Most of the above is true. Australian Universities are hotbeds of socialism filled with over educated twits who know nothing. …… BUT , a great deal of valuable research is still done. Some of it in collaboration with USA Universities.
If America could be sure that the money was going to medical research, where there have been some spectacular results, investment is worth it. Going going to universities supporting leftists ideology should stop ASAP. Unfortunately too many of them are run by Marxist boards, and it applies to every state.
Also used to support a flood of Chinese students not vetted of coarse.
..
..
Shut K Street down!! This is the very reason these bills passed by Congress are so big they are never read. I shudder to think what else is going to be found.
I’m beginning to think my congressman doesn’t know how to read.
Now we know why all “governments” are on the same page: all wh&$e’s who’ll believe/say/do whatever for free money.
if that constitutes an emergency there’s a whole lot more evil going on
Spouse says “Since no one is placed in jail, They think, why not continue.”
My question is If the DOE was was established by Mr. Carter, it certainly could add up to a large chunk of money.
Or possibly might be the reason for the O’s last trip . The one when Big Mike got so angry….Gravy train drying up?
Surely, the ‘Trump administrations blatant interference’ with Australia’s ‘independent’ research is the the fact that the US has been funding it. Surely that is ‘interference’, no??
Chinese Navy Cruises Around Australia and Sends a Message to the World
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/chinese-navy-cruises-around-australia-sends-message-world/
Oh no, send more $$$,$$$,$$$ so The Aussies can defend themselves or not.
“China” as PDJT says, already owns the Aussies, the deep bureaucracy within our 50 states financed the Chi’s military
I think some more details are required about the $600m. If, for example, the NIH made a grant to a scientific research team based at a US university but that team included a researcher working out of an Australian university then part of that grant would be paid to the Australian university to recognise the contribution of their researcher. In the same way, if a foreign entity (eg. Government) was funding a research program that included US-based researchers then part of that would be flowing into the US universities.
If such allocation of grant funding is not acceptable to US taxpayers then US Government should restrict research funding to teams involving only 100% US-based researchers. Obvious problem with this would be limiting international collaboration.
Perhaps a better place to start would be a more macro analysis of the numbers to determine how much US government funding goes out and how much foreign entity funding comes in to see what is the scientific research funding ‘balance-of-research-payments’. Once you’ve done that then you need to contemplate the value of research output which the US and the world generates through such programs and consider to what extent that may be limited by restricting who can participate in research teams.
funding their woke policies and hatred towards the taxpayers who fund them?
why am I not surprised
As a lifelong American citizen, born and bred, I implore you to please, please turn off the spigot. Please stop taxing us and sending our hard earned money to people who HATE us. And they do. They really hate us and I have traveled the world and I am very tired of being treated as the ugly American. Please stop sending them our money and let them learn how to stand on their own two feet. We all expect that of our children. It is time to expect that of the great, big, dollar sucking world. Just saying🤗
Social parasites are independent impartial benevolent experts, and their host society needs them.
Just ask them.
Whatever definition-mangling needs done to defend that proposition, they can do it.
Since their assumption has to be true, halting their extraction must be “foreign interference”, “an unprovoked attack on the innocent”, “far-right Nazi extremism”, etc….
This is a start, no more.
Macquarie University Law Department makes aspiring lawyers perform “welcome to country” pseudo aboriginal bullshit ceremonies worth one third of their final marks – and it better be sincere, or else.
I demand missile strikes.
Bull Sh!t News (BSN) will say Trump is causing recession all over the world. What they won’t say is, “by removing funding from governments and colleges.