Doctoral Programs Were Already Under Strain. Things May Be Getting Worse.

As application deadlines for doctoral programs for the fall of 2026 approach, some signs point to a bleak picture of smaller-than-usual cohorts and paused programs in the next academic year.

Many institutions were already forced this spring to reconsider their admissions plans for the current year as the Trump administration announced widespread grant terminations and floated policy changes that would cap the amount of indirect costs universities can recoup for federally funded research. A sense of limbo as courts weigh those moves has forced some of the nation’s most prominent institutions to make further, longer-term adjustments.

Other Trump-administration policies stand to affect the admissions picture for 2026, among them the elimination of the GRAD Plus loan program and new caps on the amount of money graduate students can borrow to finance their education, both of which will take effect in July. Several institutions also faced sizeable gaps in their international-student populations this fall amid visa delays and prospective students’ uneasiness about the American political climate.

All of those factors add up to a necessary “recalibration” on institutions’ part, to ensure that they can fund already-matriculated students, said Chevelle Newsome, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. “They’re really trying to be good stewards. They don’t want their students to come and then not be able to follow through on the commitment that they made to students.”

Newsome said she’s spoken to administrators at some of the council’s member institutions about ways to use temporary admissions pauses or reductions to “be more thoughtful about program enhancement, about structural reviews” and other means of reform. “None of us think it’s a good thing, but I also think that we know that it’s the responsible thing to do,” she said of the pauses, which will also result in “downstream negative consequences” for American competitiveness.