This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: One-third of young scientists who had been planning careers in academic research changed their minds in the spring of 2025, according to a new survey. Fewer expected to remain in higher education or work in the U.S., or felt that pursuing a Ph.D. was the right decision.
The survey, recently published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, was conducted at a time of tightening government policies on science funding and the presence of international students in the country. The government's efforts in those areas have been stymied by the courts, at least initially. But the new study suggests the high-profile campaign and lack of a final legal resolution have fueled uncertainty among younger scientists about the prospects for careers here.
It also adds to researchers' concerns about the disruption of the partnership between the U.S. government and universities that has driven the nation's leadership in scientific discovery, innovation and economic growth. The survey, conducted in March 2025, showed that a third of respondents who had previously said they were likely or very likely to pursue a career in academia no longer felt that way. Similarly, nearly a quarter of those who had previously expected to stay and work in the U.S. no longer felt that was likely or very likely.
And finally, when asked whether they were satisfied with having pursued a Ph.D., 17% fewer said they were either satisfied or neutral about the decision compared with six months earlier. The survey occurred somewhat serendipitously. A team including Raffaella Sadun, the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Monash University in Australia were in the midst of a large study of biomedical lab management practices when the Trump administration began its crackdown on government-funded science and higher education.
"We were running interviews with senior postdocs in the labs, and we started to realize we were in the middle of a pretty big policy change," said Sadun. "The change was seeping into the interviews and, as we were talking to the postdocs, the anxiety was palpable. They started telling us how the uncertainty of the research funding environment and the policy changes were affecting their own decisions." Sadun and colleagues had already compiled a sample of 2,466 biomedical research labs across the U.S. and, as strife between the administration and universities mounted, they understood they were in a position to analyze the extent of the disruption in real time.
So they reached out to more than 13,000 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows who had taken part in the larger management study with a simple, six-question survey: "How likely are you to stay in academia?" "How likely are you to stay in the United States?" And "How satisfied are you with having pursued a Ph.D. in science?" They asked each question twice, once "for now" and again for "six months ago." "We are running these interviews. We have this unusual access to a large number of labs and people. We had to run with this," Sadun said.
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