Higher Education Struggles

Higher education is not a primary focus of ABPTL, but an article posted by The Atlantic this morning caught my eye. The article, “Grad School Is in Trouble,” begins:

“Jennie Bromberg was somehow still exuberant last weekend about her future career in public health. In January, she interviewed for a competitive Ph.D. program in epidemiology at the University of Washington, one of several to which she has applied. ‘I loved them. It was amazing,’ she told me by phone while on a walk with her Australian shepherd. But the email that arrived from UW shortly after she got home was not the acceptance letter that she’d hoped for. Nor was it even a rejection. Instead, it said that she’d been placed in grad-school purgatory. All new offers of admission were being put on hold ‘in response to the uncertainty we are facing because of the rapidly changing financial landscape.’ The email finished: ‘We appreciate your patience as we navigate through these uncertainties and disruption.’”

“Those words euphemize a cascade of traumas that have befallen higher education since Inauguration Day. The Trump administration has frozen, slashed, threatened, and otherwise obstructed the tens of billions of dollars in funding that universities receive from the government, and then found ways around the court orders that were meant to stop or delay such efforts. In the meantime, new proposals to raise the tax on endowment income could further eat away at annual budgets. And all of this is happening at just the time when graduate admissions are in progress. Future researchers such as Jennie Bromberg are caught in the middle.”

“The University of Washington is not alone in putting things on hold. The University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Southern California have also paused or cut their graduate admissions, at least temporarily. Ilya Levental, a biophysicist at the University of Virginia, told me that his program in biomedical sciences reduced the size of its incoming class by 30 percent. In other words, grad school is in trouble. And because grad school trains the next generation of academics – those who will be teaching students, discovering knowledge, and translating science into practice – this means the future of the university itself is in trouble too.”

“Doctoral students typically do not pay for their advanced degrees. Instead, they work in research groups or labs, or sometimes as classroom instructors. In exchange for this work, universities usually pay them a modest salary and waive or cover their tuition. In engineering, the sciences, and medicine, the cost of that support comes mostly from faculty research that is in turn paid for by grants received from the federal government.”

“Once it became clear, in recent weeks, that this grant money was in jeopardy, schools began gaming out contingencies. Reducing the number of graduate students they will have to pay next year in one way to lower near-term risk. It’s also an act that universities would want to take right now, before their offers of admission are sent out. ‘People are trying to be conservative, because the worst outcome is very bad here,’ Aaron Meyer, an associate bioengineering professor at UCLA, told me. ‘A commitment to a Ph.D. [

“Administrators’ choices on admissions are made even more complicated by a weird dynamic in play across higher ed. No one wants to overreact and cut new students without good reason, but they also have to hedge against the risk of others’ cuts. The situation is structured like a prisoner’s dilemma: If lots of programs start reducing their admissions, that means fewer total spots for applicants, which in turn could lead to greater ‘yields’ – that is, a higher proportion of each school’s offers gets accepted. No school wants to end up with too many students, so if one expects a growing yield, it may decide to cut admissions offers on that basis – and thus exacerbate the larger trend.”

“The administration has also called for tightened scrutiny on visas of all kinds, including student visas. This could further muddy grad-school yields by making some applicants unable to accept their offers of admissions or enroll[ment]. Graduate-student unions, which now represent more than 150,000 students nationwide, add another layer of uncertainty. Organizing has allowed grad students, who can barely afford to live in many cities, to advocate for better pay and labor practices. But it also increased the cost of graduate education in a way that worried administrators even before the grant and overhead cuts arrived. Schools sometimes take graduate tuition, and normally pay student stipends, from the same grants that are now at risk. And some grants have already been canceled, leading to a scramble for money to cover current students. The whole system has been thrown out of whack.”

“Choosing to take fewer students forestalls or even ends the careers of future scientists. It also makes research harder. In most science, engineering, and medicine programs, students get accepted into specific labs or groups led by the faculty whose grants also fund those students. These faculty members take on students to help them carry out their research. ‘Ph.D. students make up the bulk of the academic-research workforce,’ Levental told me. Without their labor, work on already awarded grants can’t be done – assuming the funds to carry out those grants continue flowing in the first place.”

“The situation could deteriorate if current doctoral students start jumping ship. A Ph.D. student might make $35,000 a year, a sum they tolerate because ‘they are investing in themselves and are dedicated to the cause,’ as Levental put it. But that investment might start to look foolish. Dallas McCulloch, a doctoral student who studies health and illness at Wayne State University with four years of supposedly guaranteed funding, told me that he is thinking of quitting and moving abroad to pursue his degree, because of ‘the grim prospects of any future funding, including for my dissertation.’ McCulloch, an American who also holds a German passport, said he is worried that if he doesn’t act soon, he’ll end up competing with a ‘mass exodus’ of researchers seeking to leave the United States.”

…

“For the moment, though, the whole system is in limbo. UW’s ‘pause’ on graduate admissions was set to last at least two weeks, according to the email that was sent to Bromberg two weeks ago. No new was promised either way – and no news is what Bromberg has received so far. Given the chaotic and aggressive rush of new directives from the federal government, universities have no idea whether their financial outlooks will improve or worsen in the coming months. They don’t even know when they’re likely to find out….”

Some will read this and think “What a bunch of whiners. The cost of food and housing in this country is out of control and ABPTL wants us to feel sorry for Jennie Bromberg, Dallas McCulloch, and other graduate students experiencing what might be called ‘first-world problems.’”

Others, will focus on words like “uncertainty, chaos, and disruption.” This isn’t the first time, nor probably the last, we will see these words describe the activities of our current federal government. And it’s early in Trump’s four-year term, so the damage, if you believe this is damaging at all, is just starting.

Not so long ago, our country was known as the place researchers and graduate students wanted to come to from the world over. If this is to continue, then words like “uncertainty, chaos, and disruption” need to leave our nation’s vernacular as soon as possible.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB