The Trump administration signaled a shift in science funding strategy by directing agencies to prioritize awarding research money directly to individual students and researchers, rather than primarily through academic institutions. The plan is accompanied by instructions to experiment with evaluation models outside peer review for grant assessment. Federal leaders tied to the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy framed the approach as reducing administrative burdens and shifting the research portfolio toward priorities including robotics, AI, and nuclear energy. For higher education leaders and researchers, the proposal raises immediate questions about institutional revenue models tied to overhead and grants, how federal compliance and fiscal monitoring would operate under individual-award structures, and whether peer-review capacity inside universities will translate to new program designs.