Shrinking PhD Cohorts May Strain Engineering Workforce

America’s doctoral programs in electrical engineering provide the foundation for technological advancement, training the world’s brightest minds in the research, development and design of next-generation electronics, software, electrical infrastructure and other high-tech products and systems. Elite institutions have long served as a springboard for the engineers behind tomorrow’s technologies.

Today, this foundation is being put to the test.

As U.S. universities become increasingly embroiled in political battles under the second Trump administration, uncertainty is beginning to impact doctoral admissions in electrical engineering programs. As some departments reduce the number of available seats in anticipation of possible reductions in federal funding, others are seeing their applicant pools shrink, particularly among international students, who make up a significant portion of their programs.

In 2024 alone, U.S. universities awarded more than 2,000 doctorates in electrical and computer engineering, according to data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. The number of people with doctorates in computer science increased significantly in the 2010s, according to data from the National Academies, but there is still strong demand for those with advanced degrees in academia, government and industry. Now, some universities are reporting warning signs of declining enrollment.

Even though not all engineers have doctorates, if enrollments continue to decline, fewer doctoral students could mean fewer engineers developing cutting-edge technologies and training the next generation, which could exacerbate existing labor shortages as global competition for tech talent intensifies.

Federal funding cuts affect admissions

Public universities in particular are feeling the pressure because they rely heavily on federal grants to support doctoral students.

The University of California, Los Angeles, for example, must fund doctoral studies. students for the duration of a degree, typically five years. In August 2025, the U.S. government withdrew more than $580 million in federal grants due to allegations that the university had failed to adequately combat anti-Semitism on campus during student protests. A federal judge has since ordered the funding reinstated, but professors began to worry that research support could be clawed back without notice, says Subramanian Iyer, a distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at UC Los Angeles.

According to Iyer, departments at UC Los Angeles, including engineering, plan to cut Ph.D.s. admissions this year. “The fear is that at some point all this government money will be taken away,” Iyer says. “Reducing the admission rate is just one way to prepare for this reality. »

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Science Foundation — a major source of federal research funding at UC Los Angeles and elsewhere — said, “NSF recognizes the critical role that doctoral students play in the nation’s engineering and STEM enterprise” and highlighted several foundation awards and programs that support graduate research.

Financial shocks could also force Pennsylvania State University to reshape its future admissions decisions, according to Madhavan Swaminathan, head of Penn State’s electrical engineering department and director of the Center for Heterogeneous Integration of Micro Electronic Systems (CHIMES), a semiconductor research laboratory.

In 2023, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and industry partners awarded CHIMES a $32.7 million grant over five years. But at the end of 2025, the agency withdrew its final year of funding from the center, citing a shift in priorities from microelectronics to photonics, Swaminathan says. As a result, the annual budget for CHIMES, which funds research assistantships for about 100 engineering graduate students, the majority pursuing doctorates, will fall from $7 million in 2026 to $3.5 million in 2027. If these constraints persist, Penn State’s engineering department could reduce the number of doctoral students it supports.

In a statement, a DARPA spokesperson said IEEE Spectrum: “Basic research is essential to identifying world-changing technologies, and DARPA remains committed to engaging academic institutions in its program’s research. By design, a DARPA program typically lasts approximately 3 to 5 years. Once we have established proof of concept, we transition the technology into further development and turn our attention to other challenging areas of research.”

Penn State’s enrollment numbers reflect Swaminathan’s caution. He says the electrical engineering Ph.D. The cohort increased from 28 students in 2024 to 15 students in 2025. Applications show a similar trend. After going from 195 in 2024 to 247 in 2025, the Ph.D. applications fell about 30 percent to 174 for the next 2026 cohort, a sign that potential students may be hesitant to apply to U.S. programs.

Immigration Restrictions and Denials of Applications

In late January, the Trump administration announced that it had suspended visa approval for citizens of 75 countries. A few months earlier, the administration proposed new restrictions on student visas, including a four-year cap.

For Texas A&M University’s graduate programs in electrical and computer engineering, up to 80 percent of applicants each year are international students, according to Narasimha Annapareddy, professor and head of the department. Annapareddy says applications for the fall 2026 Ph.D. cohort have dropped by about 50 percent.

Annapareddy says the United States is “sending the message that migration will be more difficult in the future.” Foreign students often pursue their studies in the United States not only for academic training, he says, but also to build a long-term career and life in the country. Fewer applications from international students mean the university is abandoning a “motivated and hungry” segment of the pool of highly qualified candidates in technical fields.

“The fear is that at some point all this government money will be taken away. »—Subramanian Iyer, UC Los Angeles

At the University of Southern California, the decline is more moderate. The first year Ph.D. the class went from about 90 students in 2024 to about 70 in 2025, a 22 percent reduction, according to Richard Leahy, chair of USC’s Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Although Leahy says applications are down slightly overall, domestic applications are up about 15 percent. Beyond immigration restrictions, international students, particularly those from countries like India and China, could remain in their home countries as their technology sectors grow.

“A lot of students who normally would have come to the United States are now working very good jobs in the AI ​​industry and other fields,” Leahy says. “There are a lot more opportunities now.”

Tensions in the labor pipeline

Some professors say shrinking cohorts could erode the tech workforce if the trend continues.

At UC Los Angeles, Iyer describes a doctoral ecosystem built on a chain of mentorship. Among the approximately 25 students in his laboratory, senior doctoral students supervise junior doctoral students. candidates, who in turn guide master’s and undergraduate students. The system depends on overlapping cohorts. Reducing the number of students hired weakens these overlaps and the resulting benefits of the mentoring model that keeps the laboratories running.

The real benefit of the university system lies not only in the teaching, but also in “the community you build,” Iyer says. “As you reduce admissions, that will go away. »

At Penn State, Swaminathan sees specialization as the key to a strong workforce. Many doctoral students are trained in semiconductor engineering, thereby bringing expert talents to the domestic chip industry. If enrollment continues to decline over the next few years, Swaminathan says, companies may need to hire students with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, who may not have the skills needed to design and innovate new chips.

“Without this specialization, you can’t do much,” explains Swaminathan.

The gap between industry and academia

Not all departments are shrinking. At the University of Texas at Austin, overall enrollment has remained relatively stable, according to Diana Marculescu, chair of UT Austin’s Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Although she says the recent fluctuations do not raise alarm bells, her concern lies more with the alignment between research and industry. Doctoral students often train based on current grant priorities, she says. But when graduates enter the job market four to six years later, their specialization may not be a perfect match for open positions. This creates friction in the talent pipeline.

“This lack of connection could be problematic,” says Marculescu. She argues that closer collaboration between universities and the private sector could help create stronger feedback loops between recruitment needs and university research priorities.

For now, USC’s Leahy says his Ph.D. graduates remain in high demand and current changes have not yet translated into measurable labor shortages. “We should be worried about the number of PhDs,” he says. “But there is no crisis at this point.”