Navigating Higher Education’s Shifting Landscape: A Roadmap for SIOP

Higher education is currently navigating a relentless storm of existential threats. These include a looming “enrollment cliff,” (Kang, 2026; Selingo, 2026) shifting public opinions (Parker, 2025) and demographics (Cohn et al., 2025), and ballooning resource deficits (Nietzel, 2026; Packer, 2026), which have contributed to a wave of small private college closures (Belkin, 2026), systemic departmental consolidations (Unglesbee, 2026a), and unprecedented budget freezes across public and private institutions (https://college-cuts.com/; see also Moody, 2026). Forced to confront these realities, many universities, colleges, programs, and individuals involved in higher education have turned inward, reevaluating their value propositions, questioning long-held assumptions, and charting strategic directions unthinkable just a few years ago. At the time of this writing, 99 “college cut actions” have been recorded in 2026 alone (https://college-cuts.com/ calculated from the Timeline of Actions). These include program suspensions; staff layoffs; and departmental, campus, and institution closures due to a variety of reasons including budget deficit, enrollment declines, compliance/policy issues, merger/consolidations, and strategic restructuring (Moody, 2026). Trends indicate a significant increase in college cut actions over time, with the majority of changes attributed to budget deficits. As one particularly strong illustration, in 2023, West Virginia University (WVU) eliminated 28 degree programs and cut over 140 faculty positions to address a $45 million budget shortfall (Korn, 2023).

Unfortunately, I-O psychology programs are not immune to these disruptions. As recently as August 2026, Illinois Institute of Technology laid off almost 160 faculty and staff just before the start of the semester (Unglesbee, 2026b), including all the faculty in their I-O psychology program (Bauer, 2026). The underlying forces—shrinking pipelines, rising costs, pressure to demonstrate ROI—are the same across narratives. Importantly, these threats are not static; they shift constantly with changing political and institutional administrations, volatile funding cycles, and rapid technological leaps. As the saying goes, you can never step into the same river twice. What feels most pressing today may look entirely different in 5 years, but this does not reduce the real impacts on our field here and now. Current conditions have profound, direct implications for the field of I-O psychology.

Although we cannot control external forces, we can proactively identify specific challenges and opportunities facing our graduate education programs now and moving forward so that we can strategically respond as a professional discipline. This dynamic situation is precisely what inspired our Executive Board invited session at the 2026 SIOP Annual Conference (Reynolds Kueny et al., 2026). Directly linked to SIOP’s strategic priorities focused on “strengthen[ing] education and training of current and future I-O professionals to address evolving challenges,” we led discussions designed to confront a multitude of simultaneous, compounding challenges that our graduate programs have never had to face in combination before.

We present a synthesis of the key challenges facing I-O psychology graduate education that were discussed and include attendees’ input on priorities, potential solutions, and the role SIOP can play in supporting them as active participants in I-O education and practice. Session panelists included (at the time of presentation) SIOP president-elect (Landers), the chair and chair-in-training of the Teaching Committee (Wiese, Reynolds Kueny), program directors from doctoral (Payne) and master’s (Cunningham) graduate degree programs, and a practitioner who is also a recent doctoral graduate (Kay). Attendees were similarly representative of the I-O psychology field (including doctoral and master’s students, faculty, program directors, and practitioners), helping to ensure the discussion reflected diverse perspectives across career stages and roles.

In the remainder of this article, we summarize this discussion and our findings and offer a call to action to continue advancing the field in supporting I-O psychology graduate education during these tumultuous times.

Session Approach and Insights

As representatives of and advocates for I-O graduate education, we brainstormed and generated multiple challenges facing I-O psychology graduate programs and possible opportunities or approaches to address those challenges. These challenges and opportunities were presented to attendees as discussion guides generating participant input on perceived barriers and future needs/opportunities in I-O psychology graduate education. Below, we summarize the initial challenges and opportunities presented and how attendees ranked them in terms of priority. Then we summarize the open-discussion trends that emerged.

Challenges

Identified emerging challenges included AI disruptions (e.g., generative AI reshaping learning, assessment, and workforce skill requirements, while educators continue to grapple with appropriate norms and training approaches). At the same time, barriers throughout the educational pipeline were highlighted, including inconsistent admissions practices, visa restrictions, and limited pathways between master’s and doctoral programs. These types of barriers can discourage applicants and reduce career flexibility, particularly for international students. The field also faces challenges related to visibility, relevance, and workforce preparation. Misunderstandings about what constitutes a high-quality I-O psychology graduate program, particularly at the master’s level, create confusion for students and employers, and contribute to competition from alternative degree programs. More broadly, declining trust in higher education, skepticism toward science, and concerns about AI-driven job disruption have led some students to question the value of graduate education. Meanwhile, persistent gaps between academic training and professional practice can limit students’ exposure to applied experiences and practitioner perspectives, making it more difficult to develop the competencies needed for successful careers in I-O psychology. Finally, these issues are amplified by declining federal and state funding, which threatens student support, limits program capacity, and constrains the recruitment and retention of qualified faculty. Table 1 identifies how session attendees ranked these challenges in terms of top priorities to address.

 

Table 1

Major Challenge for I-O Psychology Graduate Education

Challenge	Average (M) ranking (1 = top, 6 = lowest priority)	% of attendees placed the issue in their top 2
Student pipeline barriers	2.27	67%
Lack of awareness of how to evaluate    graduate programs	3.07	40%
Education–practice gap	3.87	27%
Shifting value of higher education	3.80	27%
Eroding funding	3.80	20%
AI disruptions	4.20	20%

Note: Bolded challenges were identified as top priorities to address by session attendees who participated (N = 15).

 

Opportunities

We also identified multiple opportunities to help address these challenges, including leveraging SIOP as a central connector among students, faculty, and practitioners, to help clarify educational pathways, career opportunities, and evolving skill expectations within the field. Discussions also considered whether the SIOP Teaching Committee could serve as a hub for developing and coordinating shared resources—such as competency frameworks, program maps, student guides, open houses, program director support materials, and instructional mentoring—to strengthen the pipeline and increase consistency across programs. Given limited doctoral program capacity, declining funding, and continued demand for I-O psychology expertise, greater investment in master’s-level education could also expand access to the field, increase awareness of I-O psychology, and help bridge the science–practice gap. Finally, stronger applied training that incorporates practitioner-identified competencies more directly into curricula and provides students with more meaningful exposure to real-world organizational challenges and professional practice was identified. Table 2 identifies how session attendees ranked these opportunities in terms of prioritized directions.

 

Table 2

Opportunities for I-O Psychology Graduate Education

Opportunity	Average (m) ranking (1 = top, 4 = lowest priority)	% of attendees placed the opportunity in their top 2
Elevate master’s programs	2.13	69%
Strengthen applied training	2.13	63%
Use SIOP as a connector	2.56	38%
Leverage teaching committee	3.19	31%

Note: Bolded opportunities were identified as top priorities to address by session attendees who participated (N = 16).

 

Based on these insights, attendees identified student pipeline barriers as the top challenge to prioritize and a need to increase widespread awareness about quality I-O psychology education as a secondary challenge. They also emphasized that elevating master’s programs and strengthening applied training for graduate students as equally top priorities for graduate education to target as it continues to prepare the next generation of I-O psychology professionals.

Discussion-Based Insights

Working in small groups, we also discussed: (a) What have you tried or seen to address a challenge or opportunity that has made a positive impact? (b) What solutions or new approaches are you interested in trying or seeing others try? (c) What resources/support/scope of work would be needed (or would you need) to implement them? (d) What role can individual SIOP members, SIOP committees, and SIOP leadership take in steps to move forward? These questions were designed to orient group discussion toward solutions and actions, and to gather innovative input from SIOP members to help guide inclusive, strategic efforts to support future I-O psychology graduate education.

 

From these discussions, multiple cross-cutting themes emerged:

1. Program quality and degree proliferation are systemic threats. Attendees identified the lack of oversight of I-O psychology graduate programs as a core concern. Degree proliferation, which has been driven by market and institutional forces, has saturated the field with graduates with varying preparation levels. Participants noted this undermines well-trained I-O psychology professionals while creating artificial job saturation. This was seen as inseparable from the pipeline challenge: The issue is not just getting students into programs, but into quality programs that comprehensively teach I-O psychology competencies.
2. There is an increasing need for creative funding and applied training models. Attendees noted that traditional funding structures (e.g., large grants, institutional teaching/research assistantships or fellowships, revenue sharing from affiliated degree or certificate programs) are increasingly insufficient or unreliable. Successful alternatives included certificate programs, SIOP-facilitated industry contracts and partnerships, and university-based consulting centers. However, participants acknowledged these require significant faculty effort and institutional buy-in to sustain. The broader consensus was that programs need to diversify their funding models to stay competitive in the current higher education environment.
3. Expanding awareness and redefining success metrics are important. Participants repeatedly raised the need to broaden awareness among prospective students and employers of what I-O psychology professionals actually do. Suggestions included developing and widely sharing a compilation of SIOP member job titles, realistic job previews and day-in-the-life content, and clearer O*NET descriptions for common I-O psychology-related occupations. Attendees also challenged the field’s current success metrics, suggesting programs should ask recent alumni what they define as success and build backwards from there, rather than relying on traditional prestige indicators. This is also of relevance to support programs that prepare returning or nontraditional students, which, given future enrollment cliffs, is a critical need for I-O psychology graduate programs moving forward.

4. SIOP has an important role to play. Attendees and panelists discussed several ways that SIOP and its members could be leveraged to support future directions. Suggestions from attendees included SIOP demonstrating a stronger commitment to graduate education (particularly master’s education) through leadership and resource allocation, improving how information about graduate programs is organized and shared to increase transparency about their strengths and differences, leading the development of internship partnerships between graduate programs and interested organizations, and expanding undergraduate outreach and engagement, possibly starting with the annual conference.

Moving Forward

Although the data and trends identified above admittedly come from a small sample of I-O professionals and students, these data importantly reflect perspectives from SIOP members who are not always “at the table” during committee or leadership discussions on graduate education (e.g., first year master’s students, midcareer practitioners) and they help confirm and expand upon ideas discussed in those more structured groups. The rankings and report-outs should be interpreted with these considerations in mind. That said, based on these initial findings and continued discussion, we present the following recommendations and ideas to help drive SIOP members, leadership, and relevant committees’ efforts as we continue to navigate the shifting higher education landscape.

Education Quality and Pipeline Recommendations

To ensure a healthy pipeline of students entering our graduate programs (either returning or what have been termed “traditional” students), it is imperative that we continue to improve upon SIOP’s Graduate Training Program Directory. As one of the most frequently accessed pages on the SIOP website, this directory serves as an important source of information for prospective students and helps them identify high-quality programs in our field. We need to continue to enhance directory functioning to ensure information is current, easily located, and searchable, in addition to streamlining the student resources websites. We should also explore whether other designations, such as documented program alignment with SIOP’s Guidelines for Education and Training, are worth including in the directory in partnership with other key metrics (e.g., number of I-O psychology faculty, alumni placement). This is just one way we can continue to minimize barriers in our student pipeline and identify high-quality graduate education by our professional standards. Other examples include hosting webspace for graduate program informational videos as part of the directory, providing visual aids that can improve student decision making on which programs to apply for, or even considering, a unified admission portal similar to law school and medical residency matching.

We should also consider ways to more directly reach high school and early undergraduate students to better educate them on what I-O psychology is, what you can do with a degree (master’s or doctoral), and what career paths can look like (starting from internship through graduate school to long-term opportunities). One tangible recommendation is to compile all SIOP members’ job titles (e.g., by leveraging the new membership system and/or data available through career services) into an interactive dashboard to help students see what types of jobs are available. We can expand upon this information by working with members to create realistic job preview videos that appeal to younger students. Notably, this information can be useful not only to early prospective students but also possibly individuals interested in a career shift. Given projected demographic cliffs, helping later-stage career professionals in related spaces better understand what our degrees can provide can further strengthen graduate program pipelines while also expanding awareness of the field.

Related to helping prospective students understand opportunities available with an I-O psychology degree, we need to continue to improve student preparation for those opportunities. Given the SIOP employer surveys that consistently show the migration of students (particularly masters, but also doctoral students) to applied work, our commitment to bridging the scientist–practitioner gap, and attendee feedback highlighting the need to strengthen applied training, we need modernized and creative ways to prepare students for applied work. We need to support educators with providing practice-based training to their students, for example, through continuous improvement of instructional resources (e.g., through the Instructional Needs and Resources Teaching subcommittee) or more systematically, partner graduate programs with organizations for internship and applied opportunities (beyond relying on individual program consulting centers). The latter would require more intentional, centralized effort from SIOP as a professional society but could provide meaningful, sustainable, and mutually beneficial pipelines between programs and organizations, as well as networked career opportunities for students. At minimum, and expanding upon the job title database idea, building that database with a dashboard that can facilitate student key word searches for prospective internships and job opportunities would be valuable as a start.

As part of student preparation, although not identified as a highly prioritized challenge, the evolving landscape around generative AI should be addressed. Broadly, this is a professionally relevant tool with significant opportunities for the field and likely future professionals should be prepared to use it. However, we also need to ensure future professionals are still truly idea generators, critical thinkers, and creative leaders. Thus, it may be worthwhile to provide more specific guidance for educators to simultaneously prepare their students to leverage generative AI effectively while also ensuring the work that students (and faculty) produce continue to reflect their own knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Resource Recommendations

Beyond educational quality and student pipelines, SIOP will need to deeply reflect on resources that are required to support graduate education and the role of our professional society in providing this type of support. With the deterioration of funding opportunities and continued budget cuts in higher education, SIOP as an organization may need to consider a larger role in advancing its own graduate programs. For example, the SIOP Foundation could create 1-year assistantships for students. Other ideas include having SIOP foster systemic and equitable matching for project or contract-based funding partnerships between industry partners and graduate programs, or identify industry partners willing to provide educational assistance, internships, or assistantship-like opportunities equitably to graduate education. Given the recent, significant changes in international student visa status requirements, it would also be helpful to have a list of employers open to hosting international students for internships as well as sponsorship for employment.

Finally, we need to support the faculty and administrators who serve as graduate program directors and leaders as these individuals are the boots-on-the-ground protectors of our graduate programs. These individuals play significant roles in securing resources for our I-O psychology graduate programs, protecting programs from undesirable changes from higher education administrators that may not fully understand our profession, supporting our educators and faculty, and recruiting and supporting students from early undergraduate classes all the way through doctoral dissertation defenses. As a professional society, we have a responsibility to ensure we maintain and reward a robust pool of educators and administrators prepared to navigate I-O psychology graduate programs through current and future challenges. In addition to the ideas mentioned already, support could include organizing benchmarking data through SIOP databases/surveys to help leverage with university leadership, providing mentoring opportunities between longstanding program directors and new or interested faculty, systems that can support smooth transitions between leaders, and opportunities to recognize the often invisible work associated with leading graduate programs.

Conclusion

Importantly, what we have summarized here is work “in progress” and work that will require more and continued participation from SIOP members to address. The more comprehensive input we can receive on innovative ideas and solutions to address these and other challenges not discussed here (e.g., faculty recruitment and retention to psychology programs, continued threats against diversity and inclusion, and student success and well-being to name a few), the more prepared our profession will be in the years ahead. Thus, we invite the readers to share any insights they feel could be valuable to this work. We provide a form link and encourage participation and input from all readers and SIOP members (no matter your membership or career status). (If the hyperlink doesn’t work: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=vv3-4-n3G0ClGjVeAbBaiblbv2p00wZJiOei92cfpbNUOU5GNUpUTTAxT0Q0RFJZRjRQM0FSRlVQUy4u)

The ideas presented here and future input received will continue to help shape strategic initiatives among the SIOP Teaching Committee and subcommittees as well as provide creative ideas for SIOP leadership to consider. If these are ideas that readers are passionate about and would like to get more involved with, they should also consider volunteering for the Teaching Committee and its related subcommittees, or other relevant SIOP committees.

Ultimately, the higher education landscape is always evolving, and I-O psychology graduate programs are not immune to these changes. Financial/economic, philosophical, and compositional changes present challenges and opportunities that we, as members, professionals, and a professional society have a responsibility to proactively address. Our future as a discipline depends on these actions.

References

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Packer, H. (2026, May 14). Two-fifths of universities expect deficits amid student downturn. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/two-fifths-universities-expect-deficits-amid-student-downturn

Parker, K. (2025, October 15). Growing share of Americans say the U.S. higher education system is headed in the wrong direction. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/15/growing-share-of-americans-say-the-us-higher-education-system-is-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/

Reynolds Kueny, C. A., (Co-Chair), Wiese, C. (Co-Chair), Cunningham, C. (Panelist), Kay, S. (Panelist), Landers, R. (Panelist), & Payne, S. (Panelist) (2026, April). SIOP & the shifting higher education landscape: How should the profession navigate? Presented at the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA

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