Despite 50 Nobelists and 75,000 alumni, NSF’s graduate research fellows could be a vanishing breed. The future of the U.S. government’s premier training program for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduate students is uncertain after a recent scaling back of the program has led to talk that it will be essentially privatized. Anticipating a drastic cut to its next budget, the National Science Foundation (NSF) decided in early April to shrink the size of its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) this year to 1000, less than half the usual annual number.

On 12 May, 2025 NSF canceled its GRFP grant to Harvard University, one of the top five destinations for fellows, as part of President Donald Trump’s war against the university for its diversity programs and alleged support of antisemitism on campus. Also this month, NSF’s presidentially appointed oversight body, the National Science Board (NSB), discussed giving naming rights to companies willing to support individual fellows as a way to stretch scarce dollars.

Source  https://www.science.org/content/article/will-nsf-s-flagship-training-program-survive-under-trump

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