Breghilyn Cheska Bagalso, a second-year biology major on the hunt for her first co-op, applied to the Sabatini Lab at Harvard Medical School, a renowned neurobiology research laboratory.

But after her interview with the lab, Bagalso received an email March 19 stating no one would be hired for the co-op position.  

“Over the last couple of weeks, Harvard implemented a hiring freeze due to government funding cuts to biomedical research,” the email, signed by a graduate researcher at the lab and obtained by The Huntington News, reads. “While this co-op position was previously approved and financially supported by our department, the recent restrictions make it unlikely that we will pass a new round of approval in time for the co-op hiring deadlines.”  

Bagalso’s experience isn’t unique. Several Northeastern students have reported that co-op interviews and internship offers have been rescinded or altered amid a rapidly-changing hiring landscape due to policies enacted by the Trump administration, according to emails obtained by The Huntington News. 

In the emails, employers — including Harvard University and Cornell University — wrote to applicants that they were uncertain or could not currently accept co-ops due to budget concerns, with some explicitly naming new federal funding policies as the cause. Some employers did not state a reason for hiring changes. 

“It is too early to tell how the changing hiring landscape in some industries will impact our students currently applying for co-op positions,” a Northeastern spokesperson wrote in an email to The News on March 19. “At the moment, we are not seeing fluctuation in numbers beyond what we would typically see each year.”

A Northeastern assistant cooperative faculty member, or co-op coordinator, who was granted anonymity due to fear they would face repercussions for speaking with The News, said that companies holding off on posting jobs or hiring are likely doing so because of concern over budget allocations for the new fiscal year starting in June. 

“What many of the hiring freezes mean is from now to the end of their fiscal year, [there will be] no new positions until their budget renews,” the coordinator said. They explained that budgets are renewed in the summer in preparation for the start of the new fiscal year in October. Therefore, many companies are unsure what the budget will look like for the fall and whether they will be able to accommodate co-ops. 

Recently, Boston University, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, were among a slew of employers who narrowed their budgets in anticipation of federal funding cuts as the Trump administration makes sweeping cuts to funding. Dozens of Northeastern co-op positions are offered through institutions affiliated with universities that are experiencing hiring freezes or slowdowns. 

MIT and Harvard co-op positions, including Solve at MIT, the MIT BioMicro Center, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and Sabatini Labs at Harvard, are still accepting applications on NUworks as of March 19. It is unclear which positions may be impacted by hiring freezes and slowdowns.

In response to a request for comment about available co-op positions on NUWorks, David Granchelli, the manager of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, wrote, “We cannot comment about your inquiry.” 

In addition to job opportunities, Bagalso is concerned about how research teams will respond to the Trump administration’s onslaught of threats to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies. Funding cuts to research the Trump administration says is DEI-related have forced many federally funded initiatives — including Northeastern-based research — to adapt. The coordinator said that most co-op positions related to DEI are organization-based rather than federally funded, so if “the organization still holds those values, which we hope and wish that they do, that position will stay open.” 

However, this differs if companies or organizations hosting DEI-related positions are federally funded.

“The challenge then becomes if it’s an organization that does have federal ties, … are they proactively, ‘falling in line’ with this new, harsher language, or are they willing to hold firm on what they’ve had in place and what they believe in already?” the coordinator said. 

The federal government also enacted a hiring freeze for federal positions Jan. 20, including all executive departments and programs that have co-ops. Students previously had the opportunity to work within the executive branch, but those positions are now in jeopardy.

The uncertainty around funding and hiring challenges have caused some employers to pause and unpause their hiring patterns over the past several months. In an email written to Northeastern co-op applicants obtained by The News, the United States Attorney’s Office wrote March 14, “the intern/Co-op program at the [United States Attorney’s Office] is no longer under a hiring freeze.” Applicants had previously been told that the United States Attorney’s Office was no longer hiring.   

Anya Khemlani, a second-year computer science and behavioral neuroscience combined major, is currently applying for co-ops and primarily looking for lab or biotech opportunities. Khemlani had spoken with a previous employer, an academic lab at Cornell, about a potential co-op opportunity. 

However, she was informed in early February that the lab could no longer employ her as a co-op because of National Institutes of Health, or NIH, funding cuts. Instead, they offered her an unpaid volunteer position over the summer. 

The Associated Press reported universities across the country have enacted hiring freezes because of the “financial uncertainty” due to threats to research grant funding. On Feb. 25, a federal judge blocked Trump’s attempts to impose a federal funding freeze, and a second judge extended this block March 6. The new NIH policy would limit indirect costs, or money for administrative costs like rent or heating, to only 15% of all grants, which is significantly less than what is currently given to various institutions, according to NPR.   

Bella Kaplanovich, a third-year neuroscience major, is currently searching for her second co-op and hoping to find a position in clinical research. She said she had learned information about hiring freezes and funding cuts from her coworkers and past managers, but not from Northeastern.  

“It’s just tough because it’s not Northeastern’s fault. I think it’s a matter of action planning with people, helping them understand what their options are,” Kaplanovich said. “We’re all trying to be so diplomatic about it and not talk about federal changes, but the whole reason an institution exists is for the pursuit of students, and if students aren’t getting what they came here for, the federal politics doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of the student experience.”