The number of graduate students enrolling in physical sciences in the United States is still falling sharply, despite an expansion in the government's overall research budget, according to the National Research Council (NRC).

Percentage change in the number of full-time graduate students, United States, 1993–99.

In its latest study, the NRC finds that recruitment has dropped in chemistry, physics, mathematics and engineering as federal funding shifts towards the life sciences. For example, the number of full-time graduate students in physics fell by 22% between 1993 and 1999, whereas the number in medical sciences rose by 41%.

Some observers expected increases in overall research funding to stop or slow the decline, says Stephen Merrill, staff director of the NRC study. “There was an expectation that the rising tide was lifting all boats,” he says.

But an NRC panel chaired by Dale Jorgenson, an economist at Harvard University, found that the rise in total research investment after 1997 had failed to reverse the overall trend. The panel noted that federal funding for physical sciences declined by 18% in constant dollars from 1993 to 1999, whereas funding for life sciences rose by 28%.

Michael Lubell, a physicist at the City College of New York and head of public affairs at the American Physical Society, predicts that effects of the shift will be felt gradually, as the quality of the workforce declines. “As researchers retire from the national labs and academia, it will get harder to replace them with high-quality people,” he says.

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