The University is tightening its belt. The University sent an email to all its employees March 25, including student employees, describing its new budgeting rules for the foreseeable future. Citing fiscal uncertainty caused by changing economic conditions and federal policies regarding universities, all staff hiring is now under a review process, which is effectively a freeze. Off-cycle promotions are halted. The University is now “committed to merit-based salary increases and bonuses.” While the University was quick to reassure recipients that they remain committed to maintaining a high quality of scholarship, the email sent to University employees seemed like an indication of a substantial cut in the future.
While it may seem like just a fiscal policy email, this cost cutting is just the latest development in the University cowering in the face of threats to federal funding. Previously, the student body has seen the removal of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the partial ban on gender-affirming care at the University Hospital, both of which seem to be part of a goal to keep grant money flowing. Similarly, students and faculty have effectively been stripped of funds so the University could be proactive to recent federal funding changes. While preparation for federal policy enforcement is a wise move by administration, targeting faculty and students in this preparation is wildly irresponsible.
When administration caves, students and faculty suffer. While there is mention of discretionary spending cuts and capital project reviews, students will be hurt from a lack of research funding as graduates use younger students in their research and undergraduates often use grant money to start their own research. Many of these opportunities have vanished overnight, and as a result, students are not able to gain valuable research experience and professors have less material to publish. In regard to jobs, students who need on-Grounds jobs to get by will likely get turned away, applicants to graduate programs will decline and faculty will not be persuaded to hang around without promotions. This situation should be unthinkable at a top public university, yet it could be our reality.
To be sure, preparation is warranted because federal funds are no longer a sure thing. Schools like the University are now under a real threat of financial warfare. Columbia University has $400 million in grant money being held hostage by the Trump administration until the school meets its lengthy demands, a process already begun. Or rather, the administration is going to agree to negotiate the return of funds when demands are met. When Columbia bent the knee, it set a precedent — move or get moved.
The problem with yielding to such demands is that students and faculty always seem to be on the chopping block first. At the University of Pennsylvania, where $175 million in grants were slashed due to a transgender swimmer being allowed to compete, Ph.D students had to be "unaccepted" due to a hiring freeze. There are many such stories. University of California, San Diego is reducing its Ph.D program, as is Columbia. North Carolina State, the University of Louisville and Stanford University have all also begun hiring freezes for all positions.
Our administration seems to be gliding down a similar path. At San Diego, the hiring freeze was announced, then verbally lifted while still being practiced, meaning confusing correspondence is a precedent for dangerous actions. The email University employees received seemed unsure of what the future held and what exactly the results of the budget cuts would be, thus we have a right to be weary of further policies by an impassive administration.
Luckily, there are some options available to the University. One of the more obvious, yet infeasible, of these is to start digging into the endowment — a $10 billion endowment is hard to ignore when financial problems start. In 2024, the University made about $680 million in investment income, while only spending about $145 million. One could argue that even though there are rules regarding how this money needs to be reallocated back into the endowment, there is certainly room for change here if need be. However, even the endowment might not be safe. The first Trump administration wanted to create a 1.7 percent excise tax on university endowments. Now there is discussion of raising this to 21 percent — wiping out any power that an endowment could have on budgeting changes.
A more potent option would be to resist the grant slashes. While Columbia agreed to meet demands, faculty did not — two groups of faculty representation at the school have sued over the budget cuts. Perhaps this will pan out to nothing, and perhaps the school will still need to submit to the Trump administration. But resistance, especially by large and influential schools, sets a much more forceful precedent over how students and faculty deserve to exist at universities.
A prominent university standing up as a visible counterexample to Columbia and as an example of how to protest the slashing of grants is a sounder strategy than hunkering down and hoping to weather the storm for four more years. Resisting an unjust system should be at the forefront of university policy.
Paul Kurtzweil is an opinion columnist who writes about economics, business and housing for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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