Universities Are Slashing, Rescinding Graduate Admissions Amid Federal Funding Cuts

Graduate programs across the country are reducing admissions and reportedly even rescinding admission letters sent to prospective students amid concerns of drastic federal research funding cuts levied by the Trump administration.

Several student applicants, in interviews with Nature and The Daily Pennsylvanian late last month, said their offer letters were rescinded with university officials blaming uncertainty over future federal funding for the decision.

“Right now I don’t have any offers, and I’m not sure if I want to stay in research or not,” one student applicant at Vanderbilt University in Nashville told Nature after they said their informal offer of acceptance to a social sciences program in January was rescinded.

At the University of Pennsylvania, one professor told the student paper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, that their department was forced to rescind the acceptances of 10 of the 17 applicants they offered acceptances to.

“We go through hundreds of applications, we interviewed dozens of finalists, and basically all that work was just for naught,” they said under the condition of anonymity. A university representative did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

One letter reportedly sent to an applicant at West Virginia University and shared on social media Monday blamed “budgetary challenges resulting from proposed federal budget cuts to research funding” for their admission being rescinded into the school’s biomedical sciences graduate program.

“I got my dream taken away from me today,” wrote Gracie Hines on Facebook with a photo of the letter. “Universities all over the United States are losing millions of dollars in critical funding for their cancer, medicinal, and drug discovery research,” she wrote. “I am confused and heartbroken. I have no idea what to do next.”

A representative with West Virginia University confirmed that its Health Sciences Office of Research and Graduate Education is limiting admissions to its Ph.D. programs. In a statement to HuffPost Wednesday, they cited “unforeseen budgetary challenges resulting from proposed cuts to federal research funding.”

“We’ve met with the students and faculty in the affected areas, and we will continue (to) support our existing students, faculty and staff and current ongoing research initiatives,” said April Kaull, the school’s executive director of communications, in an email. “If circumstances change in the future, admission to these PhD programs will be reevaluated.”

The reductions follow the Trump administration reducing or suspending financial support for medical research in a bid to cut costs in federal spending.

The National Institutes of Health, which is the largest public funder of medical research in the world, had all new grant applications frozen shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January. That freeze was partially lifted on Wednesday.

Since that freeze, Trump’s acting NIH director has additionally proposed capping the amount of “indirect costs,” or overhead expenses, that the NIH grants towards medical research at 15%. For comparison, Harvard University’s NIH indirect rate was 69% last year, according to NPR and the Harvard Gazette, which estimated a loss of more than $100 million annually for the university due to the cut.

Some schools have meanwhile tried to work around the funding cuts without reducing admissions.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison advised its deans in a letter late last month that it should not eliminate commitments already made to students, but that it should consider decreasing the number of admissions offers and “carefully consider” whether to move down the wait list if a prospective student declines acceptance.

The University of Pittsburgh has also reversed a brief pause to its Ph.D. admissions while grappling with its NIH funding being slashed from its current indirect rate of 59%, according to Pittsburgh NPR station WESA.

A university spokesperson told the station that the freeze was imposed while it worked to understand how the reduction would impact the institution.

A university spokesperson confirmed to HuffPost Wednesday that its pause has been lifted on Ph.D. admissions, as well as “any other kind of pause.”