Has the Graduate School Collapse Begun?

When this fall’s new doctoral and master’s students were filling out their applications, there was little cause for concern about the near-term future of graduate education.

That’s changed.

President Trump’s return to the White House in January brought a cascade of new policy changes, including widespread termination of the grants that fund many doctoral students’ work and proposed caps on how much their institutions could be reimbursed for research. Visa-policy changes and an uncertain political climate made international students leery about continuing their education in the United States.

Those changes have triggered a destabilization of graduate-school enrollment for both master’s and doctoral programs. Cash-strapped colleges are cutting down on the size of Ph.D. classes, which cost them money, and finding new master’s students, which broadly make them money, are harder to come by.

Enrollment in the fall of 2026, though, is likely to paint a fuller picture. Doctoral programs will reckon with the impact of two consecutive years of reduced or canceled cohorts, while the elimination of the Grad PLUS student-loan program — slated for July 1 — will force some students to reconsider how they might fund their education.

The relative stability of the numbers in the fall of 2025, therefore, could engender a false sense of security. With the Trump administration wrapping up its first year in office, the fall of 2026 “will be a real barometer to the direction that we’re going,” said Chevelle Newsome, president of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS).