FIFY.
Heard that NSF laid off another round of employees. Academia is facing some very real very bleak problems given that most states have reduced their portions of higher ed support. An MD-Phd scholar cannot rely on NIH funding for mental health as that was one of the areas with cuts. In the state of Texas, it is the teaching portion of the trifecta (teaching, academic research, and service) that brings in dollars and one of the reasons why tuition grew so high when the state cut out its support. However, what the *research grants fund are not insignificant and not meant to imply that there is no economic benefit to the universities, the local communities, the states, and the nation (not to mention the world at large).
*Salaries (for post-doctoral positions, lab managers, PhD candidates, etc), supplies, equipment (this is often a pooled shared resource to save start-up funds), and doesn't include the cut off the top that the institution takes for utilities, maintenance, staff support, and so on.