Penn is projected to spend record amounts on federal lobbying in the 2025 fiscal year, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian’s analysis of financial disclosure documents.
Utilizing reports mandated by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, the DP found that Penn has significantly increased its federal lobbying spending in the past year on issues including National Institutes of Health funding, scientific research, and graduate medical education. The increased spending comes after portions of the University’s federal funding — which amounts to over $1 billion annually — were threatened by the Trump administration’s return to power.
A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson.
In February, $240 million of Penn’s funding from the NIH was jeopardized after the agency issued a directive capping “indirect costs” — which fund overhead expenses, including laboratories and support staff — at 15%. The NIH reinstated funding for three grants in August following faculty appeals and federal court rulings in lawsuits challenging the executive action.
In March, an additional $175 million of Penn’s federal funding was frozen by the Trump administration. The decision, according to the White House, was due to Penn’s “policies forcing women to compete with men in sports.”
One month later, the Department of Education found Penn in violation of Title IX for allowing 2022 College graduate and transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete on the women’s swimming and diving team during the 2021-22 season. To recoup its frozen funding, Penn entered into a resolution agreement with the White House in July and complied with the government’s demands regarding its Title IX compliance.
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Over this period of time, Penn steadily increased the amount of money it spent on lobbying the federal government.
In May, Penn contracted BGR Group — one of Washington’s largest lobbying firms — to advocate on its behalf with federal policymakers.
According to a disclosure filed in May, the four BGR lobbyists representing Penn were David Urban, Dan Murphy, Remy Brin, and Bob Wood.
Urban — who serves as BGR’s managing director and also received a Master of Public Administration from Penn in 1994 — was a senior advisor to 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and is credited with securing Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania.
“Penn regularly engages with policymakers and diverse partners to advance work that helps power economic opportunity, drive medical and scientific breakthroughs, and expand access to learning and wellness for communities across the country,” a University spokesperson wrote to the DP at the time.
Penn also retained Mehlman Consulting, another prominent D.C. consulting firm, paying the firm $40,000 in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025.
These increases aligned with decisions made by other Ivy League universities which have similarly increased their federal lobbying spending in response to federal pressure.
A recent CNN analysis found that Penn and other peer institutions — including Harvard University, Columbia University, and Brown University — have spent millions of dollars hiring Trump-affiliated lobbyists in Washington. The analysis found that colleges and universities targeted by the Trump administration ramped up their lobbying efforts in the second quarter of 2025, spending 122% more than the same time last year.
CNN’s analysis showed that Penn ranked sixth in the Ivy League for percentage change in spending on lobbying from the second fiscal quarter of 2024 to the second fiscal quarter of 2025.
The DP additionally found that Penn ranked fourth among the Ivy League institutions for percentage increase in lobbying spending between the first fiscal quarter of 2024 and the same fiscal quarter in 2025.
Penn’s July resolution agreement with the federal government — which several Trump administration officials suggested could serve as a “model” for other institutions — was quickly followed by the announcement of settlements by both Brown and Columbia, along with the start of similar negotiations with other peer institutions.
