On the morning of Feb. 2, students and professors within the St. John’s University chemistry department received an unexpected email.
The school had just announced that it was planning to discontinue its bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in chemistry, as well as similar degree programs in at least 12 other departments, starting in the next academic year. Like many other universities taking similar steps, the move seemed to be in response to declining student enrollment relative to adjacent fields like biology and biochemistry.
“When we got the email, we were all shocked,” says one chemistry student in the master’s program who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear that speaking on the matter could impact future opportunities.
In some cases, it was the students who ended up breaking the news to the professors. “I was in class and my phone started blowing up with texts asking what’s going on with our programs,” says Joseph Serafin, a chemistry professor. “We found out almost simultaneously with the students.”
In an email, St. John’s University spokesperson Brian Browne tells C&EN that the school is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of its degree offerings but that no final decisions have been made regarding the two chemistry programs nor any other program on the chopping block. But students who spoke to C&EN say that the language in the department-wide email blast seems to suggest otherwise.
Incoming chemistry freshmen were told that the program they applied to “is one of the programs that will be discontinued at St. John’s University” and that the school “will not be enrolling new students into this program as of the Fall 2026 semester.” Current students were simply reassured that, even though the programs will be discontinued, St. John’s would still provide them with the necessary classes so that they can graduate with their degrees.
“It pretty much sounded like a done deal,” says the chemistry master’s student, who had also completed their undergrad degree at the school.
Serafin confirms that nothing is official yet, but—like the chemistry students who spoke to C&EN—he also got the impression that “it’s official in the administration’s eyes.” The administration “basically made a determination that the program had no hope of renewal or no hope of remedy,” he says. “It’s not even quite clear how that determination was made.”
It’s likely that the decision was at least partially influenced by an analysis performed by a higher education consultancy, EAB. According to the firm’s report, reviewed by C&EN, EAB partnered with the school to assess its undergraduate and graduate degree offerings.
The firm ultimately recommended sunsetting the two chemistry programs because of weakening employer demand for chemistry-related degrees in the region, on top of falling enrollment numbers. According to the EAB report, St. John’s had 14 chemistry master’s students in 2025, half as many as 5 years prior; in the undergrad program, 32 students were enrolled as chemistry majors in 2025, down from 82 in 2020.
Serafin agrees that, especially in terms of the undergrad program, enrollment has declined over the past few years. But he says that some of that dip could have been caused by the creation of the biochemistry major in 2021, which did not appear to be factored into the report.
“It’s probably not surprising that would have siphoned off some of the people that might have been [in] chemistry,” Serafin says. “It has been something we’re working on.”
Any progress that the chemistry department has made in that regard was also not included in the report.
The report was shared with the department faculty on the same day that accepted and current students were notified about the programs’ possible elimination. Alongside the report, faculty was given the option to appeal, which they’ve begun the process of.
A broad decrease in chemistry enrollment
The siphoning of students from chemistry to biochemistry at St. John’s mirrors a national trend. According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, analyzed by C&EN, undergraduate enrollment in biology fell around 3% between 2019 and 2024. In contrast, undergraduate chemistry enrollment fell over 23% in the same period.
As a result, several schools have decided to discontinue their chemistry majors over the past few years, including Warren Wilson College in 2023. Other schools, like the University of Akron, proposed to merge several chemistry programs together. It ultimately decided last year not to move forward with the plan.
There are probably multiple reasons for this trend. At St. John’s, some of biochemistry’s popularity over chemistry might be because it’s a good option for premed students, which the university seems to cater to, says one chemistry undergrad who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid impacting current scholarships and future opportunities. Even so, they say, getting rid of chemistry in favor of biochemistry completely ignores students who aren’t interested in biology or medicine.
For example, the chemistry master’s student told C&EN that if they had received the same Feb. 2 notice as the incoming freshman when they were choosing which college to attend, they would have had “no option but to go to another school,” despite specifically wanting to attend the program at St. John’s.
Impacts beyond St. John’s
If one or two university chemistry programs shut down, other schools could potentially take up the slack. But the more programs close, the more that could start affecting the larger US chemical enterprise.
In a letter published in Science last year, three dozen chemistry department chairs wrote that the 20,000 chemistry degrees issued across the undergraduate and graduate levels every year in the US provide a workforce “essential to industries ranging from biotechnology to semiconductors.”
“I think a lot of people don’t even know what jobs they can get with chemistry,” says the master’s student. “Chemistry is everything. It’s everywhere.”
At the same time, the EAB report cites weak employer demand for the chemistry degree programs at St. John’s, stating that chemistry-related job postings in the surrounding region declined by 28% over the 5 years analyzed.
But it doesn’t discuss trends in chemistry job postings nationally.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that employment of chemist and materials scientists with a bachelor’s degree is expected to increase 5% between 2024 and 2034—faster than the average growth rate across all occupations. It’s unclear how this number will change in response to policies of the Donald J. Trump administration. But “there’s a bunch of other careers you can go into with a chemistry degree that isn’t just being a chemist,” says a second master’s student in chemistry. That student also spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns that speaking on the matter could impact future opportunities.
Still, adjusting to student interests is important if the chemistry programs want to boost their enrollment. Serafin says that as part of the appeal of the administration’s determination, the programs’ faculty is proposing ways to give traditional chemistry courses more of a biological focus as one way to attract more students.
The appeal also argues that cutting the chemistry programs would not save money, because chemistry courses—which are often considered expensive to maintain because of the cost of instrumentation, protective equipment, and reagents—will still have to be held for other majors, Serafin says. Many biochemistry majors are also required to take upper-level chem courses.
The appeal will eventually go to the board of trustees, which will make the final decision on the future of the chemistry programs come September. But regardless of the outcome, the undergrad and master’s students are devastated that eliminating the program is even a possibility.
“Chemistry is a very small part of St. John’s,” says the first master’s student, “but I think it’s a very important part of St. John’s.”
