President Donald Trump’s administration has paused, terminated or threatened to withhold nearly $50 million in funding to Maine’s university system, primarily affecting programs at the flagship campus in Orono, according to a notice circulated internally on Wednesday.
Federal funding freezes and cuts to the University of Maine were a major storyline early in Gov. Janet Mills’ battle with the Republican president over state policies allowing transgender girls to compete with girls in scholastic sports. The Trump administration froze agriculture funding and ended the Maine Sea Grant before reversing those decisions in March.
Yet the new figures reveal that the Trump administration’s cuts to Maine’s public university system have reached much further than previously disclosed. Both sides have been quiet about the maneuvering, something that has contrasted with the early federal moves against Maine and Trump’s high-profile effort to cut all funds to Harvard University.
Since Trump took over in January, the federal government notified the system that it was terminating the remaining funding for 23 federal grants, totaling $7.8 million, the notice said. It paused funding to another 19 grants, putting an additional $17.1 million in limbo.
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Meanwhile, the university noted that it was in the process of negotiating the terms and conditions for another 10 federal grants, totaling $21.2 million, only for the Trump administration to suspend or end those negotiations.
The university circulated that information in an internal update to members of the university community on Wednesday morning. Spokespeople for the federal agriculture and energy departments as well as the Environmental Protection Agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The notice provided a general summary of the cuts, saying that was because the cuts to funding have happened at such a rapid pace and officials were seeking to have some decisions reversed. The university said it is pursuing ways to regain lost funding, noting it had already restored $6.2 million in previously frozen grants.
In some cases, the notice said, the federal government has been clear that the decision to terminate an award is final, or said that funds had been paused for a specific period of time. In other cases, federal agencies provided no notification at all and the university system learned funds were frozen only when they went to access them and the money was unavailable.
Spokespeople for the federal agriculture and energy departments, two agencies that account for many of the grants, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the Environmental Protection Agency referred to comments made earlier this month by Administrator Lee Zeldin during a hearing on Capitol Hill in which he acknowledged the importance of congressionally funded grants and explained how the department was reorganizing how grants will be administered going forward.
The news comes as the Trump administration continues to slash federal spending for research universities in aggressive and controversial ways. Harvard sued the government in April over calls for changes to its leadership, governance and admissions policies. Last week, a judge blocked Trump’s plan to stop Harvard from enrolling international students.
Harvard and UMaine are schools of different stature. The latter’s endowment, for instance, was just over $436 million as of 2023, compared to the Ivy League university’s $53 billion. (Endowments are not reserve funds that can be redirected or drawn down but they provide a sense of institutional scale.) It is a member of the NCAA, which does not allow transgender women to participate in women’s sports after a February policy shift. Carrying out federally backed programs and studies is a major part of UMaine’s role as a nationally classified research university.
On Tuesday, lawmakers took steps to approve a request by Mills to increase state funding to the university system by 4 percent to help sustain a $688 million budget for the coming fiscal year. When trustees voted on the budget earlier this month, they said the system was facing “unprecedented” financial uncertainty and warned that cuts may be coming without the increased allocation from lawmakers and if federal cuts continue.
The Maine Sea Grant cut and early USDA freeze were reversed after intervention from U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Some other cuts have made headlines, such as the recent termination of 10 grants that funded research to detect and reduce the impact of dangerous “forever chemicals” in food, water and soil.
UMaine laid off nine scientists at its prestigious engineering and offshore wind research lab earlier this month after the federal government paused millions in research dollars, including grants that supported the construction of floating turbines.
But the Wednesday update illustrated how less high-profile programs have been affected, too. For instance, the notice highlighted how university officials have been unable to access federal funding through the USDA for a program out of the UMaine Cooperative Extension that helps farmers, fishermen and loggers do their jobs more safely.
Earlier this spring, the program, called AgrAbility, trained more than 100 loggers in Hancock County about how to avoid slipping and falling on the job. In early April, university officials went to draw down funds for the program and found they couldn’t, despite receiving no formal notice. As of Wednesday, the funds were still paused without explanation.
The Associated Press and BDN writer Billy Kobin contributed to this report.
Callie Ferguson is the deputy investigations editor for Maine Focus, the BDN’s investigations team. She can be reached at cferguson@bangordailynews.com.