NIH Issued 66% Fewer Grants This Year

The reassuring version of the NIH story is this: Congress passed a 2026 budget that funded the agency at over $47 billion, rejecting proposed cuts that would have slashed spending by nearly 40 percent.

The ground-level reality for researchers is more complicated — and matters directly to students planning graduate school in the sciences.

The Budget Was Restored. The Grants Were Not.

NIH has shifted to issuing fewer grants, with more money per award, over longer timespans. In practice, that means the total dollars allocated to research have not collapsed, but the number of scientists receiving any NIH funding has dropped sharply.¹

In the first months of 2026, NIH issued 66 percent fewer grant awards than in the same period the prior year. Researchers who would have received multiple separate grants in a normal cycle may now receive one — or none — while a smaller cohort of established labs wins larger, consolidated multi-year awards.¹

The effect is that federal research dollars exist on paper, but far fewer individual scientists and labs are receiving them. Early-career researchers — including recently-minted Ph.D.s without the track records needed to win a major consolidated grant — face the hardest path in recent memory.

Why This Affects Graduate School Applicants

If you're a current junior or senior considering graduate school in biomedical science, neuroscience, public health, chemistry, or any NIH-adjacent field, the grant situation matters for two specific reasons.

First, graduate research assistantships are typically funded through grants held by faculty advisors. Fewer grants means fewer funded RA positions, which translates to more competitive admissions and more applicants who are admitted but not funded.

MIT's 20% drop in graduate admissions in 2026 shows how quickly this dynamic reshapes entire programs. MIT cited federal funding cuts, the new endowment tax, and international visa uncertainty — and grad admissions fell by roughly 500 students in a single cycle.

Second, the consolidation toward larger, fewer grants creates a winner-take-most environment that disproportionately harms early-stage researchers. This is not a temporary blip — it reflects a strategic shift in how NIH is allocating a restored budget.

Before reaching out to a potential grad school advisor, look them up on NIH Reporter (reporter.nih.gov), the public database of all active NIH grants. An advisor with current active grants is in a fundamentally different position than one who hasn't had funding since 2023. This single check can tell you more than a faculty webpage.

The Broader Federal Research Picture

NIH is not the only disrupted funder. NSF, which supports non-medical sciences including physics, computer science, and engineering, has faced its own turmoil following the firing of NSF board members earlier this year. The cumulative effect across agencies has left many researchers navigating grant delays, stop-work orders, and administrative uncertainty even on previously approved projects.²

For students who already chose research-focused universities, the best near-term move is to talk directly with faculty in your intended field about their current funding status — not their past record.

A federal grant that was awarded two years ago does not fund a lab today. When evaluating whether a research mentor can support your graduate training, ask specifically: "Do you currently have active NIH or NSF funding?" A mentor who answers evasively or points only to past grants may not be in a position to fund a new student.

Which Paths Are Less Exposed

Not all STEM careers depend on federal grant cycles. Engineering, computer science, and applied data science roles that lead to industry positions operate largely outside the NIH and NSF funding landscape. Private sector employers set their own hiring budgets independently of federal science policy.

See our guide to highest-paying majors by field and college degree ROI by major for context on how research-track and industry-track STEM paths compare over time.

For a broader read on where hiring demand is growing, our job market outlook for the Class of 2026 covers which fields are actively expanding.

And for the earlier wave of federal research cuts that hit campuses directly, see our coverage of how federal research cuts are hitting universities.

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Footnotes

1. NPR. (2026, May 21). Federal funding delays are harming science irreparably, researchers say. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/21/nx-s1-5828768/science-funding-cuts-nih-trump-administration ↩ ↩²

2. Center for American Progress. (2026). Mapping federal funding cuts to U.S. colleges and universities. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/mapping-federal-funding-cuts-to-us-colleges-and-universities/ ↩