20-Year NIH Study Finds RISE and MARC Programs Doubled Underrepresented Undergraduates' PhD Odds

The study tracked outcomes for students selected into NIH-funded RISE and MARC programs versus matched peers with similar GPAs, majors, research intentions, and first-generation status. Researchers followed participants for up to two decades, documenting degree completion through institutional records and surveys. This design addressed selection bias by constructing counterfactual twins rather than using unmatched national averages, yielding the first long-term causal estimate for these workforce interventions.

Termination of both programs plus the evaluation grant occurred in 2025 under the current administration, despite the Revitalization Act of 1993 mandate. Ginther's prior observational work on NIH funding gaps and related pipeline studies from NSF indicate that abrupt cuts to structured mentoring correlate with measurable drops in advanced-degree entry for targeted groups. The current reversal therefore removes an intervention whose effect size exceeded typical observational estimates.

Remaining data on post-PhD publications, grant success, and retention sit unanalyzed after funding ended. Future evaluations will require new cohorts or administrative linkages to test whether PhD attainment declines exceed 10 percentage points within five years, distinguishing program loss from broader enrollment shifts.