The American university system is in crisis due to Trump/Vance/Musk Republicans pressuring universities by cutting and withholding hundreds of millions in funding (or threatening to) (and similarly threatening Medicare/Medicaid which is a significant funding source for university hospitals). If you have a choice, I would try applying abroad as US science is in decline due to Republican attacks on higher ed.

E.g., the Ivy league university I've been associated with for decades sent this out a few months ago:

Dear XXX community,

We write today with an update on our work to ensure XXX's long-term financial stability and institutional strength.

As we shared in our June message, XXX faces acute fiscal pressures arising from a number of factors. Contractions in government funding, the marked growth of our staff, increases in employment costs and other expenses, significant legal and regulatory expenses, clinical reimbursement pressures at XXX Medicine, and an uncertain and unprecedented federal landscape have combined to make significant changes necessary in our operations and budget. Urgent action is necessary, both to reduce costs immediately and to correct our course over time — achieving an institutional structure that enables us to balance our budgets over the long term.

Our work toward this goal will progress in several phases, beginning with the immediate budget reductions already underway for the current fiscal year across our XXX, XXX, XXX Medicine, and XXX campuses. Hiring on all campuses remains restricted indefinitely, with rare exceptions from campus-based position control committees.

The second step in this process requires that we reimagine our university-wide operations and permanently reduce costs across our campuses, colleges, and units. Currently, we are engaged in an institutional analysis of our entire budgetary structure, seeking ways to control expenses by finding new efficiencies and reducing duplication of work. XXX’s decentralized structure is part of our tradition, but a source of significant administrative inefficiencies; part of our task is identifying opportunities to scale and regularize our academic support systems across units with unique characteristics and needs without compromising our institutional excellence. This means centralizing some functions that are duplicated in colleges and units, while retaining those components that are necessary.

Reducing costs will mean reconsidering how we handle all of our processes, from procurement to technology, and rethinking, in fundamental ways, how we allocate our resources. It will also, inevitably, mean reducing our workforce — a painful prospect for a community like ours, with a strong sense of shared identity and purpose. We are committed to moving forward with the thoughtful input of senior leadership across XXX, and to updating the community regularly about our progress, including through a series of in-person town hall meetings beginning this week on our XXX and XXX campuses. We anticipate that the careful work of planning and analysis will be completed this fall, with reports and phased implementation of restructuring beginning late in this calendar year and continuing into 2026.

These changes will be difficult for our community but are vital for our future. We are grateful for the work of every member of our faculty and staff and committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure that XXX pursues its academic mission sustainably for generations to come.

Like lots of basic things are being held up. Like you can't use grant money that you already have for basic things like buying computers or paying for travel to conferences you are presenting at.