Middlebury has been named a Fulbright Top Producing Institution for the 15th consecutive year, with nine alumni teaching, researching and interning abroad on a Fulbright scholarship for the 2024–25 academic year. These Fulbright recipients have experienced recent uncertainty over their funding following the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education, efforts to cut federal spending on international aid and attempts to eliminate programs it believes promote “woke” ideology.
As 11 Middlebury semi-finalists anxiously await their award notifications for next year, recently graduated Fulbrighters have learned about various cuts and changes to their respective countries’ programs that will impact next year’s grantees.
On Feb. 13, some recipients of U.S. State Department grants — which fund scholarships such as Fulbright, the Gilman Scholarship Program and the Critical Language Scholarship Program — received an alarming notice of a 15-day pause on their upcoming due payments. To the knowledge of Associate Dean for Fellowships and Research Lisa Gates, no Middlebury alumni or student recipients of Fulbrights or other scholarships received this notice because their specific programs are sufficiently well-funded by their host countries and able to continue supporting them despite the temporary freeze.
Regardless, news of this message prompted widespread concern among grantees from colleges across the country. NAFSA, a nonprofit that supports international education, posted an update on March 26 that 65% of the delayed payments had been distributed, weeks after the 15-day pause originally prescribed.
Claire Babbott-Bryan ’23 is on an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) Fulbright at the Metropolitan University of Technology in Mexico. As she and other Fulbrighters in Mexico heard that funding for grantees in other countries had been paused, their program’s WhatsApp group chat erupted with anxious messages.
“It became clear really quickly that the [U.S.] State Department was gutting a lot of these international programs and so it was very confusing and frightening for a lot of us,” Babbott-Bryan said.
More than a week later, Fulbright Mexico hosted a Zoom meeting, where the program director ensured the grantees that they would receive the remaining third of their stipend as planned in May. However, sweeping changes will apply for the 2025–26 academic year.
The number of Fulbright ETA grantees for Mexico will be cut from approximately 65 to 20, and stipend amounts for these grantees may also be reduced. Program staff said that this is mainly because the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) in Mexico is cutting a large amount of their funding for the program, which Babbott-Bryan speculated was done in anticipation of the instability of U.S policy and funding under Trump. She expressed concern about the reduction in grantees next year, as far fewer schools across Mexico will receive cultural and language instruction from native English speakers.
“It has become really clear living here, just how important it is to have there be resources for English language learning and true, honest cultural exchange in a way that's not just like a tourist traveling,” Babbott-Bryan said. “Thinking about all of the communities, especially smaller communities, that are going to miss out on those resources and opportunities that come from that, is a really, really sad thing.”
Fulbrighters in Mexico also received a brief email stating that Fulbright Mexico’s mentorship program — which invites 10 Fulbright ETA grantees back for a second year to help first-year grantees adjust to life in Mexico — is cancelled for next year, despite several current grantees having already applied for the positions. Babbott-Bryan shared that this program has been integral to her Fulbright experience.
“It was really critical, I think, for my transition to Mexico, having this mentorship program — being able to ask anything, whether it's about finances or like getting our immigration card or visa or making friends or a place to go out dancing,” Babbott-Bryan said.
Sydney Armor ’24 is on a community-based combined Fulbright in Graz, Austria, where she works as an English teaching assistant at two high schools, interns at a center for migrant women who have faced gender-based violence and takes courses at the University of Graz. Armor was shocked when she heard some grantees had received the funding freeze notification. However, like Fulbright Mexico, Fulbright Austria is mostly funded by the Austrian government.
“I kind of thought Fulbright would be safe at least for a while because it’s such an old program that has always had a lot of bipartisan respect,” Armor said. “I was kind of worried because it took our coordinators a little bit of time to reach out to us and sort of explain that we were going to be okay.”
While plans for next year are unconfirmed, the program coordinators in Austria told grantees that some restructuring will be necessary. Fulbright grants for ETAs will likely remain, but additional stipends that the program provides for activities like internships and coursework will be reduced or eliminated.
Ellie Suit ’24 is on Fulbright in Belgium, where she conducts physics research on the theory of complex quantum systems at the University of Antwerp. Her funding is safe, but like Babbott-Bryan and Armor, she learned in a virtual meeting that Fulbright Belgium, which also administers the program in Luxembourg, is in the process of adjusting next year’s programming. It is possible that if a research project addresses “woke” topics such as gender identity and climate, it may no longer be eligible for a Fulbright.
“I think this would be so sad because it would really create isolation between the U.S. and the world, but then also reduce international collaborations, which is really important in my field,” Suit said.
Gates, the college’s associate dean for fellowships and research, was unsurprised to learn that Fulbright programs will change next year; it makes sense to her that other countries would decrease funding due to concerns over U.S. cuts to funding.
Other awards partially supported by the U.S. State Department that Middlebury students benefit from are the Gilman Scholarship Program and the Critical Language Scholarship Program.
Christina Ritter ’26 is currently studying abroad on a Gilman Scholarship in Kenya and has not received any messaging from the program regarding changes to her funding, but mentioned being worried about a possible funding freeze after another Gilman Scholar she knows received that notice. Four Middlebury students were recently selected as finalists for Critical Language Scholarships and one was selected as an alternate candidate. So far, they have not received any notification of changes to their upcoming programs.
Gates said that no emails notifying Middlebruy’s 11 Fulbright semi-finalists of their award status have been sent, signaling a delay in the process compared to previous years. This delay may present challenges for semi-finalists who are offered other post-graduate opportunities that require an answer before they know if they have been selected for a Fulbright.
“Everyone is nervous. There is no hard information, and we’re living in this environment of unprecedented uncertainty,” Gates said. “It's a hard time, and I imagine students may be more conservative in their decision-making than they might be in a different economic and political climate.”
Despite these concerns, Gates has not changed the way she advises students and will continue to encourage those who are interested in pursuing State Department-funded opportunities. However, she said that information about changes to programs has been difficult to come by in any clear, accessible format.
“I’m getting my information sometimes directly from representatives of these [scholarship] organizations. Sometimes I’m getting it from students who have received award notifications, because I’m not copied on those. I’m getting it from the news. I’m getting it from Reddit,” she said.
Gates mentioned that the personal statement portion of the application for the next application cycle has been replaced with a series of short answers about “fulfilling the Fulbright mission,” marking a significant change for students currently considering applying.
The kick-off meeting with fellowship advisors for the next Fulbright application cycle will occur on April 4 as scheduled, when advisors will outline further changes in more detail and explain how Trump’s executive orders will affect Fulbrights.
Madeleine Kaptein '25.5 (she/her) is a managing editor.
Madeleine previously served as a staff writer, copy editor and local editor. She is a Comparative Literature major with minors in German and Art History. In Spring 2024, she studied abroad in Mainz, Germany, from where she wrote for the Addison Independent about her host country. In her free time, she enjoys journaling, long walks and runs, and uncomplicated visual arts projects.
