Harvard University, the University of Washington and the University of Pittsburgh are among the latest institutions of higher education to announce hiring freezes, citing the uncertainty around federal funding.
Leaders at a growing number of universities across the country say they are looking for ways to cut costs and buy time, as questions swirl around President Trump's efforts to slash financial support for some schools. Education experts say the pullback of resources will not only hurt current and prospective students, staff and faculty, but could also harm the local economies of university towns and ultimately make the U.S. less competitive globally.
"The lack of clarity and uncertainty concerning future federal research support means loss of opportunity to American science," said Toby Smith, senior vice president for government relations and public policy at the Association of American Universities. "There will be fewer job offers to new researchers and fewer offers of admission to Ph.D. candidates."
Many universities have said that the hiring pauses are temporary, and will be evaluated when they have more information about the status of federal support.
"It is meant to preserve our financial flexibility until we better understand how changes in federal policy will take shape and can assess the scale of their impact," Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in his announcement on Monday.
Garber said he is also asking school leaders to take steps like scrutinizing discretionary spending and reviewing any new multi-year commitments, citing "substantial financial uncertainties driven by rapidly shifting federal policies."
The belt-tightening at Harvard — the university with the largest endowment in the world — underscores the degree of concern and caution many institutions are operating under in the current political environment. But it's not only private schools that are proceeding with caution.
North Carolina State University announced a hiring freeze last month, citing "the uncertain impacts of the presidential administration's Executive Orders and guidance" as well as state financial issues and a potential federal government shutdown. The University of Washington said last week that "significant and rapid policy changes" at the federal level, along with a state budget shortfall, necessitated a pause on all hiring and travel.
"The current federal funding trajectory, while not completely clear, is nevertheless dire," wrote University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce.
The Trump administration has threatened to pull federal funding from schools that don't eliminate diversity initiatives or adequately protect Jewish students from discrimination. It also moved to limit National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for research universities.
And it's proposed eliminating the Department of Education, whose responsibilities include managing college financial aid and federal student loans. The department announced Tuesday that it is laying off nearly 50% of its workforce, but says it will continue to deliver programs protected by law.
Federal resources are one of the main pillars of support for colleges and universities, explains Derrick Anderson, senior vice president of the Education Futures initiative at the American Council on Education (ACE).
Anderson says he's not entirely surprised to see the slew of hiring freeze announcements in recent weeks. He calls it a responsible first step for any organization dealing with uncertainty around resources since it delays potential layoffs and gives universities time to figure out their priorities.
"We are clearly in a world where the [Trump] administration has an agenda for higher education, and universities have a long history of being partners with every administration in advancing the nation's interest," he says. "And so a hiring freeze allows these universities, especially universities that are deeply involved in scientific research, to sort of recalibrate where they need to start putting their emphasis."
He says it's important for institutions of higher education to evaluate — and improve on — their strengths and weaknesses, because of the crucial role they play in the U.S. and the world. But he hopes they do so in a way that's "consistent with the values that we've had in this country for a long time."
"We're going through a moment of time that has particles of uncertainty, and I think that they are significant," Anderson says. "But the story, in the long run, is still the same: that higher education is a tremendously valuable investment, especially at the undergraduate level, and that we all agree … that it's such a significant value proposition for the whole of this country that we want to support it."
More than a dozen schools have announced hiring freezes and other steps
Some of the schools that have frozen hiring include Columbia University's medical school, the University of Notre Dame, Emory University, Cornell University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University and the University of California, San Diego.
Their announcements cite the uncertainty around federal funding — due to executive orders and legislative proposals — as a primary factor. Many of their messages also urge administrators and faculty to reduce costs in other ways.
Northwestern, for example, also announced 10% budget cuts last month. Emory is one of several schools that froze compensation adjustments, and also announced "significant reductions in operating expenditures."
The University of Pennsylvania unveiled a slew of cost-cutting measures on Monday, including a hiring freeze, a review of capital spending and a reduction in non-compensation expenses.
Provost John Jackson Jr. wrote that in addition to changes to federal research funding, other proposals currently before Congress, such as reductions in student loan programs and an increase in the excise tax on university endowments, could also affect the school's finances.
He said the scope and pace of the possible disruptions "may make them more severe than those of previous challenges," including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2008 financial crisis.
"Although the extent and final impact of these policies will not be known for several months, the direction is clear, and we are already experiencing reduced funding," Jackson added.
Many other university leaders have similarly acknowledged the difficulty that hiring freezes and budget cuts — and the general feeling of uncertainty — pose to their communities.
MIT said that while its plan is "designed to help steward and safeguard the Institute's mission in the face of unpredictable change, we recognize that it will pose direct challenges across our community." The University of Vermont said it is "aware that this measure may introduce challenges or delays in the work of our valued colleagues." And UC San Diego acknowledged that "it may be tough for many to focus amidst all of the uncertainty."
"Navigating the stream of rapidly changing, and perhaps confusing, policy directives and the uncertainty about the future has been challenging for many, to say the least," Chancellor Pradeep Khosla wrote.
It's not just faculty and students who would feel the impact
While "uncertainty" remains the operative word for now, details are starting to emerge about how much universities stand to lose if the Trump administration succeeds in its efforts to limit NIH funding, which supports most medical research in the U.S. That policy change immediately prompted multiple lawsuits and is currently blocked by a federal judge.
The NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, and also covers "indirect costs" like facilities maintenance and administrative support. That "indirect rate" varies between universities, for example, it was 63.7% at Johns Hopkins University and 69% at Harvard. The Trump administration wants to limit indirect costs to just 15% of grants — which could cost universities millions of dollars.
The University of Pittsburgh, for example, says cutting the indirect cost rate will amount to a loss of reimbursement of $168 million this year.
Universities would have to choose how to make up the difference, since there are limits on how much they can dip into their endowments. And "the choices that they have are all pretty bleak," Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the journal Science and former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told NPR last month.
"They'd have to cut other programs in order to fill that hole in, which could affect any discipline or any function of the university," he said. "Or they would have to cut corners in the way they administer the research, which could create all kinds of problems with accounting or noncompliance with the government's regulations."
Industry groups including ACE and the AAU say the proposed NIH funding cuts will harm the millions of Americans facing conditions like cancer and dementia, as well as the next generation of biomedical researchers aiming to heal them.
"The loss of this American workforce pipeline would be a blow to the U.S. economy, to American science and innovation, to patients and their families, and to our nation's position in the world as a leader in medical research," they said in a joint statement.
Smith, of the AAU, said the potential loss of research funding could also create a chilling effect on younger students considering careers in scientific and technological research, calling it "an unforced error and a gift to our nation's potential adversaries, who are now taking advantage of this to actively recruit top U.S. scientific talent."
"It makes no sense to turn our backs on American science and the talent base needed to fuel it at the very moment we need to step up our game to stay ahead of China and other global competitors," Smith added.
The strong network of research activities at higher education institutions — with investment from the federal government — is part of what makes the U.S. so economically and scientifically competitive, said Anderson, of ACE. He thinks one thing universities can do in this moment is make sure they are communicating that effectively.
"We do higher ed well — not just well, we are the best," he adds. "Countries around the world are trying to mimic the way that we do higher ed. And I just think that we as an industry need to do better at explaining that."
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