PhD Graduate student admissions paused and cut back

"Right now, it looks very likely that there will be major cuts to pretty much all PhD and MD/PhD programs. It looks like there will be massive cuts to NSF and possibly the overall NIH budget, but the biggest bomb is the cuts to indirect. This will cause cuts to administrative staff and cores and maintenance, but there will also be many fewer students being accepted. Universities are implementing a variety of plans to recoup lost indirect from the direct side of grants. For example, one university I'm familiar with will be charging rent, and another is going to shift some PI salary to direct (that previously wasn't charged to the grant). In either case, a grant that previously paid for 3 grad students will now only pay for 2. Since that starts immediately, PIs are scrambling to figure out how to pay for the students they already have. They aren't going to take any new ones until they can figure out how to pay for the students who are already there.

If the indirect cuts get reversed by the courts, and the administration abides by the court decision, then the field is probably just looking at cuts to the overall budgets of NSF and NIH (and other science agencies). In this case, one might expect 25-50% cuts to new student admissions.

If the indirect cuts do not get reversed, many universities will be scrambling to limit admissions this year (possibly rescinding offers) and they will not take any new students next year as they figure out how to pay for existing students. In the future, PIs will ask for more direct funds to compensate for rent and other upcharges, which will mean fewer total grants being funded and fewer students."

 

https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/19/trump-funding-freeze-grad-student-postdoc-acceptances-paused-nih-research/