Our nation is facing trying economic times, and with the failure of the congressional budget super committee to reach a compromise, those times may have just gotten worse.
In general, Democrats think we should focus on raising government revenue through increasing taxes and the elimination of loopholes, while Republicans believe the budget crisis should be solved through spending cuts, particularly to entitlement programs.
Any practical plan for balancing the budget is likely to include both revenue increases and spending cuts, a proposition that makes many academic researchers and scientists nervous.
Scientists at most universities, including our own, owe the existence of their research to publicly funded organizations created for the advancement of science, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Funding from these organizations is supplied through grants, which scientists compete over so they can complete their research.
Securing these grants is vitally important to the careers of our professors who spend a great deal of time and effort petitioning these organizations for a chance to pursue their research.
This research is often not undertaken with a practical goal in sight, but may instead focus on the development of scientific knowledge for the sake of knowledge. This pursuit is integral to the scientific method, and researchers should be encouraged to follow every interesting path they discover during their research in the hopes of making an important and unexpected discovery.
This research model has produced innumerable scientific advances, especially in the modern era where academic advances are used by the private sector to develop practical applications in science, medicine and engineering.  
Unfortunately, organizations like the NSF are overseen by Congress, which is overwhelmingly unscientific, with only 47 of its 535 members holding at least one math, science or engineering degree.
As government spending comes under increasing scrutiny, funding for scientific grants is likely to present an easy target for members of Congress hoping to balance the budget.
Republican presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul believes the government should get out of funding scientific research altogether. To be fair, Paul believes the federal government should stop funding almost everything outside the military, but scientific research is one area in which government funding is absolutely necessary.
Those in favor of cutting scientific funding argue the private sector can conduct research more efficiently, but they fail to realize private companies are able to quickly complete research because they are given access to the broad research conducted by academic scientists.
Under pressure from Congress, the NSF has recently updated the merit criteria the organization uses to choose grant recipients to focus more on the impact of the research on society, specifically the economic competitiveness and national security of the United States, rather than the scientific merit of the research.
The focus of the merit criteria has come under harsh criticism by many scientists who argue these conditions deter the NSF from awarding grants to any research that  cannot offer a practical, real-world application.
Critics also argue the new standards force the researchers and NSF to evaluate proposals on criteria outside of their areas of expertise. Biologists pursuing research on an enzyme should not be expected to evaluate the impact of their research on the U.S. economy or its national security.
Grants for fundamental research provide the building blocks for future public and private scientists to develop major scientific breakthroughs. Plenty of grants are awarded for research that never reaches a practical application, but that is a small price to pay to ensure we can continue to pursue scientific research for the sake of knowledge and continue to collaborate and produce amazing results.
 
Andrew Shockey is a 21-year-old biological engineering senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_AShockey.
 
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Contact Andrew Shockey at [email protected]