FIX EXCLUSIVES
Decline is ‘not yet a concern,’ expert says
Ph.D. admissions fell 15 percent over the past year at 55 research universities in the U.S., according to the Association of American Universities Data Exchange.
“The data also show that, while domestic students submitted a higher number of applications (+3%) to doctoral programs, international student applications to Ph.D. programs declined by 21%,” the Association of American Universities reported.
The AAU is a membership organization of leading research universities. The AAU Data Exchange is a platform these members use to track enrollment and admissions trends across elite research institutions.
The AAU claims the decline is a significant cause for concern, as fewer doctoral students “means a thinner bench of innovators, fewer future scientific and medical breakthroughs, and a diminished capacity for the United States to compete against China and other nations in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy.”
However, a higher education expert disagrees.
Chance Layton, communications director for the National Association of Scholars, told The College Fix that, “The decline of [Ph.D.] programs is not yet a concern, as the labor market has not yet absorbed the excess graduates from previous years.”
Layton said he assumes this decline is abnormal and “is a clear result of the current, necessary tumult occurring in higher ed.”
He also said that while research cuts have contributed to the decline, the main cause is the lack of international student enrollment.
When asked why more private foundations are not intervening to fill the gap, Layton said that the “polemical answer is: They weren’t funding scholarship to begin with, just churning out scholar-activists.”
He also warned against the decline in liberal arts programs, specifically those that focus on Western Civilization and American History since they “safeguard the knowledge of our culture.”
He said that “many programs have given up that sort of work and have replaced scholarship with various sorts of political activism.”
Offering another perspective, Heritage Foundation spokesperson Marguerite Bowling told The Fix that whether the decline in Ph.D. enrollment is alarming “depends on its cause.”
“It may be possible that fewer students are pursuing Ph.Ds. because labor market opportunities have improved and the return on graduate education has dropped compared to immediate employment,” she said.
She added that this decline has been happening for some time.
She pointed to a James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal article, noting that “enrollment declines beginning in 2022” stemmed from “an improved labor market that made immediate employment more attractive than pursuing additional time in school.”
When asked if research cuts could be contributing to the drop in Ph.D. program enrollment, she said the story is more “complicated.”
“While international applications fell substantially, domestic Ph.D. applications increased by 3 percent. Given the heavy reliance by many top research universities on international graduate students, recent declines in F-1 visa issuances are an important contributing factor to consider,” she said.
Finally, The College Fix asked Bowling why more foundations are not intervening to fill the gap.
“If the private market doesn’t intervene, then we have to ask whether these programs are worth funding in the first place,” Bowling said.
In contrast, Michael Nietzel, former Missouri State University president, wrote in an article published by Forbes that he is concerned for the future of research in America.
“While some have argued that such pullbacks represent a long-overdue rightsizing of a glut of doctoral graduates, most observers are rightly alarmed by what recent developments could mean for America’s traditional leadership in graduate education, particularly in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines,” Nietzel wrote.
He warned that other countries, including Canada, are taking this opportunity to invest money in attracting U.S. doctoral program applicants to their own programs.
This is the “inevitable result” of President Donald Trump’s decision to slash federal research spending, he wrote.
He added that Ph.D. programs are a vital part of any university.
Nietzel quoted George Washington University Department of Biological Sciences Chair Guillermo Orti, who said, “Graduate student Ph.D lines are the bread and butter for maintaining a research program at any university.”
“If you’re cutting Ph.D packages to recruit students, you’re basically cutting the capacity to do research at the university,” Orti said.
