The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge has frozen hiring for non-faculty positions.Credit: Mel Musto/Bloomberg/Getty
The onslaught of US spending cuts is prompting drastic action by universities across the United States. Academic institutions are responding to the administration of US President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting campaign with hiring freezes, travel restrictions and moratoria on pay raises. At least one US university has shed staff, and other campuses are contemplating lay-offs and furloughs.
The number of schools and programmes known to have restricted graduate-student admissions continues to rise. The administration is threatening even more extensive cuts, leading some scholars to fear for the future of the US academic system, which relies on federal funding to finance everything from graduate students’ stipends to building maintenance and utility bills.
“The academic model on which the universities relied to conduct their research, to fund their students, to fund postgraduate students — all this is in crisis, because a lot of it, in some way, was funded through federal grants,” says Aseem Prakash, a political scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “This is a massive shock.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment before the time of publication.
Abrupt change
The administration has choked off multiple revenue streams to universities. The US National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies have terminated research grants and halted review of new grant applications. Universities could also face steep cuts to federal income for indirect expenses — which is used to run research facilities — and hikes in taxes on endowments.
Dozens of campuses face even harsher restrictions. The US Department of Education has announced that 60 US institutions of higher education are under investigation for potentially antisemitic harassment and discrimination. The department cited demonstrations that began on many campuses after Israel invaded Gaza in 2023 in response to attacks by Hamas.
Protests over Israel–Hamas war have torn US universities apart: what’s next?
The administration has already cancelled US$400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York City “due to the school’s continued inaction to protect Jewish students from discrimination”, according to an official statement.
On Wednesday, news outlets reported that the administration had put on hold $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, over its support for transgender athletes. A spokesperson for the university said that its policies on student participation in athletic teams comply with those of national athletic bodies.
“The speed and scope of the assault from the federal government is entirely novel,” says Daniel Greene, an information scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park.
Sour job market
In response to the funding cuts and worries about the future, hiring freezes for all staff and faculty have been announced at institutions such as the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland was planning on hiring 40 faculty members in areas including chip engineering, neural networks, political science, history and health. “That will now be carved down to probably three of four” faculty members, says Greene.
Other schools, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, and the University of Pennsylvania, have frozen hiring primarily for non-faculty positions.
Money-saving measures at universities include calling off pay raises and job promotions, and directives to avoid non-essential travel and training. Spending has been frozen on conferences, food and events — “the types of things to bring people together, which hurts morale even more in many ways”, says Jevin West, a computational scientist at the University of Washington. Universities are pausing spending on memberships, dues and subscriptions, and some are reviewing spending on new buildings and renovations.
The University of Washington is restricting researchers from spending grant funding until the money has been delivered. “That’s a big deal,” says West. “Having that eliminated really slows the research process.”
Choking off the pipeline
A substantial number of universities are limiting graduate-student admissions. Many departments at MIT have admitted fewer graduates this year. West Virginia University’s Health Sciences Office of Research and Graduate Education in Morgantown rescinded offers to students who had not yet returned acceptance letters. And a few dozen applicants to UMass Chan Medical School’s Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Worcester, Massachusetts, were told in early March that their provisional offers of acceptance had been rescinded.
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