Hard times for PhD degrees in US as funding cuts, enrolment declines bite

The PhD degree, long regarded as the pinnacle of academic achievement and independent scholarship, is facing mounting pressure on multiple fronts in the United States, according to a report published by Forbes.

Forbes reports that reduced federal support for university research and graduate training under President Donald Trump's administration has contributed to widespread uncertainty across higher education, with leading doctoral programmes cutting admissions, international students looking elsewhere, and PhD-trained staff leaving federal agencies in large numbers.

While some commentators argue the slowdown reflects a necessary correction to an oversupply of doctoral graduates, Forbes notes that many observers are concerned about the long-term implications for the US's global leadership in graduate education, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Universities are cutting back PhD admissions

Last year, several leading research universities announced reductions or freezes in future PhD admissions, Forbes reports.

In August, the University of Chicago said mounting financial pressures would force it to pause or cut back admissions in several areas, with the social sciences, arts and humanities particularly hard hit.

According to Forbes, Harvard followed in October, signalling a significant reduction in new PhD intakes, while Yale, Columbia, Brown, the University of Southern California, Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania also scaled back, paused or rescinded admissions. Large public institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, Michigan State University and the University of Washington, took similar steps.

The scale of the nationwide slowdown is difficult to quantify, Forbes notes, as many individual programmes quietly reduced numbers without formal central directives, though anecdotal evidence suggests the trend is widespread.

Doctoral downsizing has continued into this year, Forbed reports, adding that George Washington University recently announced a 7% cut in doctoral student support, admitting smaller cohorts in 13 programmes and halting new admissions in five, including clinical psychology, anthropology, human paleobiology, political science and mathematics.

"Graduate student PhD lines are the bread and butter for maintaining a research programme at any university," Guillermo Orti, chair of GWU's Department of Biological Sciences, was quoted by Forbes as saying, adding that cutting PhD funding "basically" reduces a university's research capacity.

According to Forbes, the reductions are an almost inevitable consequence of the administration's stated intention to cut federal spending on research, which is the primary source of funding for most doctoral training programmes, particularly in the sciences.

President Donald Trump has proposed deep budget cuts for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies.

While Congress currently appears inclined to reject those reductions, Forbes says most universities are proceeding very cautiously with research and graduate education commitments amid ongoing uncertainty at the federal level.

Forbes reports that other countries are now seeking to capitalise on the increasingly fraught funding environment in the United States.

Canada launched an aggressive strategy in December to attract leading international investigators and research teams to its universities, committing nearly C$1.7 billion (about US$1.2 billion) to the effort. This includes C$133.6 million over three years to encourage up to 600 highly promising doctoral students and 400 postdoctoral researchers to relocate to Canada, with many expected to come from the US.

On top of this, Forbes says recent changes in US visa and immigration policy are being blamed for sharp declines in graduate applicants from other countries, which have traditionally been a major source of interest in STEM programmes.

Citing the Global Enrolment Benchmark Survey, Forbes reports that enrolment of new international graduate students in the US fell by 19% last year, while nearly two-thirds of US universities (63%) reported declines in overall graduate enrolment.

By contrast, international graduate enrolments rose in other regions, with Asian universities reporting a 3% increase, while institutions in Europe and the UK recorded rises of 5% and 3%, respectively.

Even before universities began cutting back future admissions, PhD enrolments were already stagnating, according to Forbes. While total US postsecondary enrolment increased by 1.0% in autumn 2025, the growth was driven primarily by undergraduate numbers. The latest National Student Clearinghouse Research Center enrolment report found that doctoral enrolment declined by 0.3% last autumn, amounting to a loss of more than 2,000 students.

PhDs are fleeing federal agencies

According to Forbes, a new Science analysis of data from the White House Office of Personnel Management reveals a sharp increase in the number of PhD holders leaving federal research agencies.

Across the 14 agencies examined, PhD departures outnumbered new hires in 2025 by a ratio of 11 to one, resulting in a net loss of 4,224 STEM PhDs.

Forbes says the losses were most pronounced at research-intensive agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), although every one of the agencies lost more STEM PhDs in 2025 than in 2024, before Trump took office.

According to the Science analysis cited by Forbes:

NIH topped the list, recording more than 1,100 PhD departures in 2025, compared with 421 in 2024.

NSF experienced a net reduction of 205 STEM PhDs between January and November, amounting to 40% of its total pre-Trump PhD workforce of 517.

On average, the 14 agencies lost roughly three times more PhD-level experts in 2025 than in 2024, while the number of STEM PhDs hired at every agency was markedly lower in 2025 than in the previous year.

Across the 14 agencies, there was an average 17% decline in STEM PhD employees between December 2024 and November 2025.

Forbes further notes that Science examined the reasons behind these departures and found that federal reductions in force "accounted for relatively few departures."

Instead, it reports that "at most agencies, the most common reasons for departures were retirements and quitting."

Although the Office of Personnel Management classifies many of these exits as voluntary, Science said that "outside forces including the fear of being fired, the lure of buyout offers, or a profound disagreement with Trump policies, likely influenced many decisions to leave."

PhD pipeline programs are being attacked

Last March, the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights notified 45 universities that they were being investigated over their participation in The PhD Project, a pipeline program launched in 1994 to help diversify business school faculties by supporting black, Hispanic and Native American professionals in earning PhDs.

Its website claims that "since 1994, we've helped more than 1,500 members earn their doctoral degree," Forbes reports.

The department alleged that the institutions had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by partnering with an organisation "that purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a PhD and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants," according to Forbes.

The universities involved included public powerhouses such as Arizona State, the University of Michigan, the University of Washington, The Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California, Berkeley, along with private schools including Yale, NYU, Vanderbilt, Cornell, Duke, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Forbes notes that the response to the investigation was swift and largely obliging.

Most institutions issued brief statements indicating they would cooperate with the investigation.

Others including Arizona State University and the Universities of Iowa, Kentucky, and Wyoming promptly cut ties with the organisation.

Several institutions, under political pressure, even began restricting faculty from attending diversity-related conferences.

According to the project's CEO, Alfonzo Alexander, about 20% of institutional partners have stepped away, causing substantial financial difficulties and forcing the organisation to intensify private fundraising efforts.

Alexander told Forbes that the programme had already been reexamining its policies before the investigation and had removed race and ethnicity from its application criteria.

For decades, The PhD Project served as a valued, non-controversial bridge-builder for universities and minority professionals.

But that changed last year when it became a prime target for conservative activists and an administration determined to eliminate programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.

Forbes says that when the full history of the Trump administration's campaign to reshape higher education according to presidential priorities is finally written, the troubles PhD education encountered last year will deserve its own chapter. One key lesson, the publication notes, is that while the harms occurred quickly and sometimes surprisingly easily, their negative consequences for universities and society at large are likely to linger for a long time.