Nature talks to prospective students left in limbo as some institutes withdraw offers and put applications on hold.

Some universities across the United States are reducing or halting their PhD admissions because of federal-funding uncertainties stemming from actions taken by the administration of US President Donald Trump. Few universities have released public statements about their strategies, so prospective graduate students have remained mostly in the dark about which institutions are cutting back. Nature spoke to several young scientists caught up in the confusion. Some have received e-mails from universities indicating that they would have been accepted if not for funding uncertainties; others have been told that programmes are completely paused.

At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, some prospective students even received informal offers to join the graduate programme, only to later have them rescinded, according to the institution’s newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian.

“The whole thing is horrendous,” says a professor at the university, who requested anonymity because they are involved in admissions. “They’re cutting the heart of the intellectual mission of the university.” The university did not respond to requests for comment.

At the centre of most of the turmoil is the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which, with an annual budget of US$47 billion, is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. Funding of NIH research grants has mostly been frozen for the past month, owing to actions taken by the Trump administration to reduce federal spending. The freeze has persisted despite a federal judge’s order to release the money. Separately, under Trump, the NIH has attempted to slash the rate paid to US research institutions for the ‘overhead costs’ that, for instance, keep electricity on and pay the rent in researchers’ workspaces. The agency proposed cutting the rate from between 40% and 70% to a flat 15% — a potential loss of billions of dollars for universities. A coalition of universities, as well as the attorneys-general of 22 states sued to halt the policy, which they say is illegal, and a federal judge temporarily blocked it from taking effect...