Pandemic Leads Dozens of Universities to Pause Ph.D. Admissions

In what is perhaps the largest recalibration ever in academic graduate programs, more than 140 doctoral programs across dozens of schools are saying they won’t admit new students for fall 2021. Ph.D. programs in seven of eight Ivy League schools are pressing pause, and so are others at the University of Chicago, University of Minnesota and University of Washington.

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The admissions suspensions—or what the University of Pittsburgh refers to as an “intermission”—are concentrated in humanities and social science fields like American studies, art history, English and sociology, where Ph.D. students are funded by their universities. Hard sciences and engineering, where students’ expenses are largely paid for by external grants, remain untouched. The academic-sector employment prospects for those students also tend to be stronger.

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Doctoral programs have long been criticized as training students to take jobs that no longer exist. More than 55,000 people received doctorates in 2019, according to the National Science Foundation, including more than 14,000 in the humanities, arts and social sciences.

But since the 2008 financial crisis, academic labor markets have changed dramatically, leaving far fewer tenure-track spots for new Ph.D.s. NSF data show that in 2019, 59% of humanities Ph.D.s had lined up jobs or postdoctoral research positions at the time of their graduation, the lowest rate of any field.

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