In 2024, my nephew graduated from college with a Bachelor’s degree in marine biology and plans to pursue a PhD. This past spring, he contacted over 30 professors at several U.S. universities with excellent marine biology graduate programs. He received the same response from all but two of them: we won’t have funding to support new graduate students in 2026. One even said they didn’t expect to have such funding for the duration of Donald Trump’s presidency. As my nephew explained, “You can only get in if you have a professor who’s willing to advise you, so if you can’t find one, there’s no point in applying.”
My nephew is now applying to programs at international universities and will most likely attend one of them. His experience is similar to what many prospective graduate students have encountered in the last several months: citing a lack of funding due to cuts by the Trump administration, universities are reducing the number of spots in their graduate programs and in some cases, they’re not offering admission to any new graduate students.
The cuts to research funding are affecting undergraduates as well. At most large universities, graduate students already get priority for research positions and undergraduates get the spots that are left. So if there is a reduction in funds, the positions that remain will almost certainly go exclusively to grad students.
For undergrads who want to go to medical school or pursue graduate education or jobs in STEM and some social sciences, doing undergraduate research in college is critical to their admission and employment prospects. If students don’t have research opportunities in college, that could interfere with their long-term educational and career goals.
Even if students don’t aim to do research in college, research funding cuts could impact them in other ways. For example, certain courses may no longer be offered, faculty may be terminated, and tuition and financial aid could be affected.
According to an article from College Aid Pro, a company that helps families maximize financial aid, if a public university’s research funding is reduced, the university may increase tuition to bring in more revenue. Additionally, “Some states offer scholarships based on their own funding mechanisms, which are often supported by federal research dollars. If federal funding is cut, these state-funded scholarships could become more competitive or less available.”
The Center for American Progress published an article about research funding cuts in every state. It includes interactive maps that show the dollar amounts that the Trump administration has targeted for termination at individual universities, as well as the impact of the cuts in each state on a per-student basis. The article states, “the administration has targeted more than 4,000 grants for termination to over 600 universities and colleges across the country, affecting institutions in every state.” It goes on, “According to the Trump administration, it has terminated awards valuing between $6.9 billion and $8.2 billion.”
These terminations won’t just affect colleges and the students who attend them. A recent Inside Higher Ed article cited a report by the Brookings Institution which found that “Some college towns would lose thousands of jobs if the National Institutes of Health implements President Trump’s drastic proposed budget cuts.”
There will also be significant impacts on the U.S. economy as a whole. The Center for American Progress reports, “Academic experts estimate that cuts to NIH [National Institutes of Health] and NSF [National Science Foundation] funding alone will cost the U.S. economy between $10 billion and $16 billion annually in decreased economic output. Additionally, researchers estimate that proposed cuts to NIH funding would result in nearly 70,000 jobs lost nationwide.”
As a result of reductions in research funding, some students may choose to go abroad for their undergraduate education. Discovery College Consulting has already seen an uptick in the number of our students who are considering international universities. For those who decide to leave the U.S. for college, what is the likelihood that they will return for grad school and/or to work? In addition to the short-term effects of Trump’s funding cuts, we could see a significant “brain-drain” of talent from the U.S. for many years to come.