US funding chaos reshapes grad school choices for Canadians

After graduating with a bachelor degree in mathematics from the University of Waterloo in Canada, Kareem Alfarra had hopes of continuing his studies in the United States. The American schools he looked at were better funded and had more opportunities than those in Canada, he said, and he’d already connected with some professors he’d like to work with, writes Charlotte Lepage for CBC News.

Alfarra (22) applied to nine American universities, hoping for options, but he ended up being waitlisted and rejected for all of them. Most of them told him informally that budget uncertainties in the US were making it difficult for them to accept graduate students, he said. He says one school even told him that in any normal year, he would have been accepted.

While that’s just one student’s story, universities on both sides of the border say that uncertainty brought on by the Trump administration is reducing options and upending research opportunities for graduate students – including Canadians. More than 10,000 Canadians went to graduate school in the US last year, according to data from the Institute of International Education, with 40% pursuing science and health degrees.
Full report on the CBC News site