By Natasha Sokoloff
The Hour, Norwalk, Conn.
(TNS)
NEW HAVEN — Yale University will be admitting fewer graduate students in response to the looming federal endowment tax hike that university officials warn is creating a major budget shortfall.
Reducing the size of PhD programs is just one of the recent actions the Ivy League school has announced as it scrambles to deal with an increased tax on its endowment that is expected to cost the school hundreds of millions of dollars, in addition to cuts to research funding.
“This is a devastating loss to Yale and to society at large because it means less research will be possible, and fewer curious, creative, motivated young people will have access to the education needed to carry out rigorous research that produces new knowledge,” said Lynn Cooley, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in a statement to CT Insider.
Starting with the current admissions cycle, Yale will be decreasing graduate student enrollment in the humanities and social sciences by approximately 13%, and enrollment in the sciences and engineering by about 5%, she said.
“Recent increases to the federal tax rate on Yale’s investment income have reduced the Graduate School budget, of which 93% goes toward support for graduate students,” Cooley said. “To address this significant budget shortfall, our only option is to reduce our graduate student population through lower admissions targets over the next three years.”
The endowment tax hike, which goes into effect in July, was passed as part of President Donald Trump’s signature spending legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It raises the endowment tax on America’s wealthiest universities, such as Yale, from 1.4% to 8%.
Yale officials estimate the tax will cost the school $300 million per year, and in recent months have announced a series of cost-cutting efforts in response that include potential layoffs and budget cuts across Yale schools and units.
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The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers 63 PhD programs, from architecture to biomedical engineering, according to its website. And the new Graduate School enrollment targets mean Yale will have smaller incoming cohorts across PhD programs beginning in the 2026-2027 academic year, Cooley noted.
In 2025, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offered admission to 1,077 applicants out of 18,779 for an acceptance rate of 5.7%, according to the website; 579 of those offered admission accepted the offer. Overall, the Graduate School has more than 3,000 PhD students, according to the website.
The enrollment reduction (13%) in humanities and social sciences programs is larger than in sciences and engineering (5%) because “a larger fraction of graduate student support for humanities and social sciences comes from endowment funds than in the sciences and engineering,” Cooley said.
Although Yale PhD students receive the same level of financial support, those in the sciences and engineering are funded from a combination of university endowment funds and other outside research grants, foundation fellowships and training grants, she said.
All Yale PhD students receive fellowships for the full cost of tuition, a stipend for living expenses and paid health coverage, according to the Graduate School website.
“The research we do at Yale simply would not be possible without PhD students,” Cooley said. “Because of that, all Yale PhD students receive full financial support … so they can focus on advancing knowledge.”
In a Jan. 12 message to graduate students, Cooley wrote that the Graduate School would continue to honor its financial commitments to students.
“Graduate students are central to Yale’s mission of discovery and education,” Cooley said in her statement to CT Insider. “Our PhD students work alongside faculty, pursuing long-term projects that can lead to practical breakthroughs based on years of hard work. For example, Yale researchers are exploring life-saving treatments for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, doing cutting-edge research on quantum computing and bringing new insights to historical archives.”
Cooley said the decisions on the new enrollment numbers were discussed with each department chair and director of graduate study after the revised tax rate was passed.
And as for the impact of the reductions on undergraduate programs at Yale, Cooley said “we are evaluating any impact on our teaching mission caused by having fewer graduate students serving as teaching assistants in undergraduate classes.”
Photo credit: f11photo/iStock
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© 2026 The Hour (Norwalk, Conn.). Visit www.thehour.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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