Straws in the Wind - Part 83

From the Chicago Maroon: ...The University of Chicago’s Division of the Arts & Humanities will reduce or pause Ph.D. admissions across all departments, accepting smaller cohorts in seven and suspending admissions entirely in the remaining eight. The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice will also pause Ph.D. admissions, and the Harris School of Public Policy will pause admissions to its Harris Ph.D., Political Economy Ph.D., and M.A. in Public Policy with Certificate in Research Methods. 

“These unit-level decisions reflect each program’s specific context and long-term goals, with the aim of ensuring the highest-quality training for the next generation of scholars,” a UChicago spokesperson wrote to the Maroon. “The University remains fully committed to supporting rigorous and impactful graduate education.” 

...UChicago’s preexisting financial challenges, including a $221 million budget deficit as of last October, have been compounded by cuts to student loan programs and federal funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Science Foundation...

Within the Division of Arts & Humanities, departments pausing enrollments entirely include Classics, comparative literature, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Romance languages and literatures, Slavic languages and literatures, South Asian languages and civilizations, and visual arts. Ph.D. enrollment will be limited for the art history, cinema and media studies, East Asian languages and civilizations, English language and literature, linguistics, and music departments...

Full story at https://chicagomaroon.com/48307/news/uchicago-to-cut-some-ph-d-masters-admissions-for-2026-27/.

From Inside Higher Ed: The National Institutes of Health’s director ordered employees to “conduct an individualized review of all current and planned research activities,” including active grants and funding opportunity announcements, according to images of a document provided to Inside Higher Ed. The review comes amid concerns that the NIH won’t distribute all of its allocated grant money by the time the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, meaning those dollars will return to the U.S. Treasury. ..The order is part of a larger memo in which [NIH director Jay] Bhattacharya outlined “select agency priorities” and said projects that don’t align with these priorities may be “restricted, paused, not renewed, or terminated.” 

...Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed that the president’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 already outlined a set priorities for the rest of the current year. “Switching gears at this stage reinforces confusion, diminishes trust, and increases concerns within the scientific community,” Carney added. “It joins the long list of tactics risking impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds rather than funding biomedical research that is essential for the people’s well-being.”

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/08/19/nih-director-orders-review-all-current-planned-research.