GASE: Graph-Aware Semantic Embedding Learning with Frozen LLMs for Text-Attributed Graphs

AbstractLarge Language Models (LLMs) have shown strong potential for text-attributed graph (TAG) learning, yet effectively integrating LLM semantics with graph structural information remains challenging. Embeddings obtained from frozen LLMs lack topology awareness, while fine-tuning LLMs is often computationally expensive. Moreover, LLM embeddings are high-dimensional, and naively reducing dimensionality tends to destroy semantics. To address these issues, we propose GASE, a framework for learning Graph-Aware Semantic Embeddings using frozen LLMs. GASE consists of two key stages: First, we introduce a Training-Free Structure-Aware Semantic Extraction (TSSE) module. Through inter-layer semantic feedback and progressive masked attention, it efficiently compresses and propagates semantic context from neighboring nodes without updating LLM parameters. Second, we propose a Subspace Decomposition and Structural Injection (SDSI) strategy. Embeddings obtained from TSSE are decomposed into a semantic-rich subspace and a structural injection subspace, and structural signals are injected into the latter, which preserves original semantics while integrating graph information. Experiments demonstrate that GASE outperforms state-of-the-art baselines on node classification and achieves a 5× speedup over fine-tuning-based methods.