"I think that's probably just part of maintaining an institution that does research," Fields says. "It seems to me that that's a reasonable thing to do.

Stanford's Byer says that through "very cost-effective" means, the university can claim the indirect costs of research it is entitled and still retain competitiveness for grants. The school received more than $97 million in reimbursements for overhead expenses in fiscal 1990, according to Stanford Comptroller Franklin G. Riddle.

Jeffrey D. Ullman, chair of computer science at Stanford, says the problem is more with the national economy than with indirect cost rates.

"We're in the process of becoming a poor nation, and we can afford less and less," Ullman said. "We should get serious about becoming a competitive country again and getting enough money to support research again."

Ullman added that while there has been an increase in grants awarded to faculty members at the university, the grants are of decreasing amounts.

While the debate over federal funding continues, congressional cutbacks and belt tightening has brought the GAO to Palo Alto, Calif. and, recently, to Cambridge.

For now, University officials can only await General Accounting's arrival on March 1. Mean-while, at Harvard, Med School Professor Eisenberg takes the cynical approach. He says federal investigators will likely find accounting errors during their probe because, in general, mistakes will be made.

"They get paid for finding things wrong," Eisenberg says. "They don't get congratulated for finding a clean bill of health. If you can get the pointy-headed intellectuals at Harvard, well that's marvelous."