Prominent research universities throughout the US admitted 15% fewer applicants to their PhD programmes for the upcoming 2026 academic year, compared with last year. The Association of American Universities (AAU) suggests this trend can be linked to the Trump administration’s action.
The AAU, which represents 71 top tier research universities including two in Canada, based its conclusions on Association of American Universities Data Exchange (AAUDE) figures from 55 of its member insitutions. The analysis revealed not only a decline in PhD admissions but also a decrease of 21% in the number of international students who submitted applications for doctoral programmes versus the previous academic year. In the meantime, however, there was a small rise of 3% in the number of PhD applications submitted by domestic students during the same period.
These insights came from a collaboration between the AAU and AAUDE, which is a non-profit that aims to improve the quality and usability of information about higher education and is not affiliated with the AAU. This ad hoc project involved a custom analysis of PhD applications and admissions data intended to help provide early insights about the 2026 PhD cohort at AAU member institutions. There is no similar data available for AAU institutions earlier than the 2025 admissions cycle.
‘Cuts in graduate admissions can be linked directly to the financial uncertainties universities are facing as a result of declining and unpredictable federal research funding,’ said the AAU’s vice president for research and institutional policy, Emily Miller, and the organisation’s senior vice president for government relations and public policy, Tobin Smith.
Since President Trump’s return to the White House in January last year, his administration has twice proposed massive budget cuts to key US government research agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF)and the National Institutes of Health. Congress earlier this year succeeded in blocking those reductions for financial year 2026, and many in the research community are urging similar intervention for the administration’s 2027 budget, which requested similar cuts.
Financial uncertainty
Beyond such financial turmoil, Miller and Smith also suggest that this drop in PhD admissions and applications is related to the additional requirements for federal research grant proposals that have been implemented during Trump’s second term.
These added stipulations have further delayed funding decisions and created widespread uncertainties about whether certain research projects will receive federal funding, according to Miller and Smith. ‘As a result, many universities have become more cautious about making long-term commitments to new doctoral students in Stem [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics], whose ability to pursue their education depends heavily on research grants,’ they write.
Further, the AAU officials argue that US immigration policy changes that have occurred since Trump took office again have made international students feel less welcome as universities in other countries have intensified their efforts to attract Stem talent from other countries, including the US.
‘The combined shift may well have reduced international student interest in pursuing doctoral education in the United States,’ Miller and Smith assert. They cite the example of a researcher at one AAU university whose two pending NSF grants to support undergraduate researchers were cut due to funding constraints.
The loss of that funding translated to nearly a dozen undergraduate research assistants losing their funding, the AAU estimates. In addition, the professor in question was apparently forced to terminate other full-time researchers and postdoctoral scholars who had been supported by the programme.
‘As PhD admissions decline, America faces the alarming prospect of losing an entire generation of scientific talent,’ Miller and Smith warn. ‘When promising undergraduate students look at the uncertainty surrounding doctoral funding, research continuity and career prospects, many will make a rational choice – taking industry jobs straight out of college or pursuing doctoral training abroad.’
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