Uncertainty, anxieties about doctoral programs

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Kimberly Adams** (0:31)
A check in on how businesses are feeling and what that means for their customers.
From Marketplace in Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams. The National Association for Business Economics released its latest survey on business conditions today. It's a pulse check, a quarterly questionnaire for business owners and members of trade groups. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Ginzer had a look and joins me now with more. Good morning, Nancy.

**Nancy Marshall-Ginzer** (0:55)
Good morning.

**Kimberly Adams** (0:56)
So, the survey out this morning paints a picture of cautious optimism. Can you explain?

**Nancy Marshall-Ginzer** (1:01)
Yeah, almost half the survey respondents expect increased sales over the next three months, and that is up slightly from the last survey in May.
Fewer businesses expect their sales to drop sharply, and one reason for that, they're less concerned about a recession, but they are very worried about inflation, Kimberly. I talked to Julia Coronado about what's behind that. She is founder and president of Macro Policy Perspectives and a professor at the University of Texas, Austin.

**Julia Coronado** (1:30)
Tariffs, rising energy costs from the war, not really necessarily labor costs per se, that's not the main pressure, but sort of a broad menu of rising costs.

**Nancy Marshall-Ginzer** (1:45)
About two-thirds of the survey respondents said the cost of materials they buy rose over the past three months, and they expect materials costs to continue going up over the next three months.

**Kimberly Adams** (1:57)
Are they passing those higher costs on to their customers?

**Nancy Marshall-Ginzer** (2:01)
Yes, they are. Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents say they have raised prices at some point to offset at least some of their higher costs. Forty percent of them hiked prices just over the past three months, and that is the biggest share since October of 2024

**Kimberly Adams** (2:17)
Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Ginzer, thank you, Nancy.

**Nancy Marshall-Ginzer** (2:19)
You're welcome.

**Kimberly Adams** (2:21)
Orders for durable goods, things like cars, furniture and home appliances rebounded in June, according to data from the Census Bureau. It shows orders were up three-tenths percent, about $335 billion.
That's after there was a four percent decrease in May.

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**SPEAKER_6** (3:51)
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**Kimberly Adams** (4:24)
There are fewer students trying to get advanced degrees in the United States. The number admitted to Ph.D. programs this coming fall dropped by 15% from last year according to the Association of American Universities Data Exchange. That's partly due to the uncertainty of federal funding under the Trump administration, causing universities to reduce the size of their programs. But it's also due to a sharp drop in number of international students applying to Ph.D. programs in the US. Those applications were down 21% this year. For more on this trend, I'm joined by Toby Smith, Senior Vice President for Government Relations and Public Policy at the Association of American Universities. Good morning.

**Toby Smith** (5:06)
Good morning. It's great to be here.

**Kimberly Adams** (5:08)
There's been that drop in applications from international students. What explains that shift?

**Toby Smith** (5:15)
What has happened historically is we've attracted the best and brightest students from around the world not only to come here, but they often come here, they want to stay, and they manage to stay. But the immigration policies that have been put in place is going to make that harder. The rhetoric and policies also are making it seem less welcoming for foreign students to come here. The concern we have with that is, if you look, and I'm just going to use artificial intelligence, one of the areas that's very important, there are some studies that show that over 50 percent of the top AI companies in the country were started by foreign-born founders who came here.