Policy Update (28 October 2025)

The federal government is now entering its fourth week of the shutdown, with “no resolution in sight,” according to Punchbowl News. The Senate has voted 12 times on a continuing resolution to fund the government through 21 November, but the measure has not passed. The House of Representatives has not been in session for over a month. 

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to lay off thousands of federal workers during the shutdown. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, however, has laid off an additional 550 employees in a reorganization unrelated to the ongoing shutdown. For more information on the shutdown and recent developments in space and science policy, check out: 

• What’s Happening in Space Policy 26 October – 1 November 2025 (SpacePolicyOnline) 
• What’s Ahead, The Week of 20 Oct 2025 (AIP FYI) 

At least seven universities — Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Virginia, Dartmouth College, and the University of Arizona — have declined to sign the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The compact offers preferential access to federal research funding contingent upon institutional agreement to a set of policy provisions. For additional details and university statements, see this article from The Hill.  

On 22 October, AAS sent a letter to Brian Stone, Acting Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), expressing strong concern about the policy changes announced in the 2025 solicitation for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), which exclude second-year PhD students from being eligible to apply for the GRFP. We urge NSF to reconsider its decision.

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