On Feb. 21, Penn told departments in the School of Arts and Sciences to institute cuts to graduate student admissions.
Credit: Chenyao LiuPenn directed department chairs to significantly reduce admissions rates across graduate programs in the face of federal research funding cuts, multiple faculty members told The Daily Pennsylvanian.
On Friday, Penn notified department chairs that it will cut admissions across graduate programs, a decision faculty members say was made after programs had already accepted students. Professors expressed frustration over the lack of transparency from the University, with some attributing the cuts to broader funding issues — including a proposed $240 million funding reduction from the National Institutes of Health — and warned that the decision will impact Penn’s research and educational mission, particularly within the School of Arts and Sciences.
Requests for comment were left with a University spokesperson and a spokesperson from the Office of the Provost.
A Penn professor, who requested anonymity due to fear of retribution, told the DP that the decision appeared to be “last minute” and came after departments had already informed the University of the students who were selected for graduate programs.
“We go through hundreds of applications, we interviewed dozens of finalists, and basically all that work was just for naught,” the professor said. “We just wasted half of those people’s time because our list just got cut by more than half.”
The professor added that the University “pulled the rug out” from many faculty members, some of whom had already offered acceptances to students they had thought were admitted — only to now face the possibility of having to cut those students from the program. The professor said that their department — which submitted its choices for admits to its graduate program on Feb. 14 — will be forced to rescind the acceptances of 10 of the 17 students.
“This whole thing about rescinding offers is just absolutely deplorable,” the professor said.
The DP could not confirm how many schools and departments will be affected by these cuts to admissions at the time of publication. In statements and interviews with the DP, SAS faculty members said that all departments within the school have been notified to reduce the size of their graduate programs.
Another Penn professor — who also requested anonymity due to a fear of retribution — wrote in a statement to the DP that SAS called an emergency meeting on Friday evening to address the admissions cuts and “decide on collective action.”
“On the whole, people were very upset, complaining about lack of transparency and consultation and about decisions being imposed by the [Penn] administration without proper explanation,” the professor wrote.
The professor noted that many faculty members voiced concerns about how the University’s actions will impact Penn’s “educational mission” and were upset about a “lack of proportionality between the relatively small percentage of the lost income versus the large 35% cut in [graduate] programs.”
While the University did not inform the departments why it was instituting funding cuts, a professor noted that it could be a response to 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump’s executive actions, graduate students’ unionization efforts, or simply because “[Penn doesn’t] believe in the humanities.”
While some graduate chairs at the Friday meeting expressed concerns over graduate programs “being punished for unionization,” the majority of faculty members did not “seem to agree” that the cuts were in response to organized labor efforts, according to a professor who attended the meeting.
Penn has seen a recent uptick in campus union organizing. In May 2024, Penn’s graduate student workers voted to unionize by an overwhelming majority. Last month, following continued engagement from union groups, around 200 people gathered at a rally in front of College Hall in support of securing a graduate student worker contract with the University.
A Perelman School of Medicine professor, who requested anonymity due to fear of retribution, said that the school was told to make cuts to Ph.D. programs prior to the NIH funding cuts, but additional cuts have been implemented following executive actions from the Trump administration. The professor expressed concern that Penn may have to cut other programs within the school to account for the loss of federal funding.
On Feb. 7, the NIH proposed a funding cut that could cost Penn $240 million. While a judge temporarily halted the changes following Penn and 12 other universities bringing a lawsuit against the NIH, the cut — a 15% cap on indirect costs — could stunt the development of graduate programs.
Indirect funding typically covers overhead research expenses, including equipment, facilities, and administrative expenditures that cannot be claimed as direct costs. Although the NIH does not fund individual graduate programs, indirect grants support academic staff, and cuts could spread departmental resources thin.
In a Feb. 11 statement responding to the NIH funding cut, Interim Penn President Larry Jameson reiterated the University’s commitment to ongoing research.
“I want to emphasize that Penn has long been a leader in research, resilience, and adaptation,” Jameson wrote in an email to the Penn community. “Our community is strong, and we will continue our groundbreaking research, advocate forcefully, and take the steps needed to sustain our mission.”
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