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CBS News
2 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Johns Hopkins University pauses pay increases, reduces spending due to funding uncertainty
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore is implementing a hiring freeze and pausing annual pay increases due to the uncertainty of funding sources, the school confirmed. The university added that it will reduce the number of research projects and cut back on spending on expenses, including travel, food, supplies, and professional services. "Although the precise timing and impact of funding reductions will vary across our divisions — depending on funding sources, student composition, and other factors — many parts of the university are already experiencing the effects of these developments and facing uncertainties about the future," Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels, Provost Ray Jayawardhana and Executive VP for Finance and Administration Laurent Heller said in a joint letter. In the meantime, Johns Hopkins said it is taking steps to develop strategies that will improve its financial challenges. While the university awaits the final federal budget plans, leaders said that expense reductions will continue through at least the 2026 academic year, and possibly longer. Funding cuts impact Johns Hopkins' research projects Johns Hopkins confirmed that the university lost more than $800 million from USAID grant terminations. Since January, Hopkins said, 90 grants have ended with the loss of $50 million in federal research funding. JHU has been one of the top recipients of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to assist in groundbreaking research. In April, the Trump administration said it planned on cutting the NIH budget by more than 40%. According to CBS News, more than 1,500 NIH employees have been laid off in 2025, and more than $2 billion in research grants have been cancelled. "We fear that this downward trend may be laying the groundwork for deep cuts to the extramural research programs at the NIH, NSF, DOD and DOE—further fraying the extraordinary and longstanding research partnership between universities and the federal government and significantly curtailing Hopkins' capacity to undertake our core academic and research mission and to sustain the people who allow us to realize it," Johns Hopkins leaders said. In May, Hopkins said it was laying off 2,200 workers because of the loss of funding from USAID. "Moreover, we are seeing a marked decline in the pipeline of new federal research awards at Hopkins, down by nearly two-thirds since January, compared to the same period last year, despite continued high scores and an increase in submissions by our researchers," Hopkins officials said in the letter. Visas revoked for international students The Trump administration has revoked visas for international students across the country, including at Johns Hopkins University. The administration also paused student visa appointments for international student applicants. The effort is part of a push to scrutinize social media accounts as part of the student visa applications, according to CBS News. JHU confirmed to WJZ in April that at least 37 international students have had their visas revoked. The Trump administration started revoking visas from students who were said to have participated in pro-Palestine protests that took over some college campuses in 2024. In 2024, protests at Johns Hopkins lasted for about two weeks, with students setting up tents and occupying a part of the campus with an encampment. "The recent moves by the federal government to revoke or withhold visas from eligible international students and scholars run counter to more than a century of collaboration at Hopkins with students and scholars who hail from around the world," Hopkins said. "Our international community has always been critical to our research mission, and we are deeply concerned about the toll of this uncertainty on our students and on our university as a whole."
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Federal Cuts Force Hiring and Raise Pauses At Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University announces four immediate cost containment measures in an attempt to ... More stabilize ts finances. The leadership of Johns Hopkins University announced on Monday that it was implementing several belt-tightening measures as it tries to address the financial pressures brought on by the Trump administration's cutbacks in research support and other changes in higher education policies. In a letter to the campus community, Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels, Provost Ray Jayawardhana, and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Laurent Heller identified the financial strains the university had already suffered, and they outlined additional challenges they anticipated were yet to come. Referencing 'a steady stream of research grant terminations, suspensions, and delays,' the leaders wrote that the university had sustained losses of more than $800 from USAID grant terminations. In addtion, since the start of the year, 90 grants have been terminated by other federal agencies, resulting in the reduction of more than $50 million in research funding, 'with more terminations arriving nearly every week.' New federal research grants awarded to Hopkins investigators are down by almost two-thirds since January, compared to the same period last year, and Hopkins leadership said they "fear that this downward trend may be laying the groundwork for deep cuts to the extramural research programs at the NIH, NSF, DOD and DOE…significantly curtailing Hopkins' capacity to undertake our core academic and research mission and to sustain the people who allow us to realize it.' Hopkins had previously taken steps to provide limited bridge funding to researchers whose grants had been suspended or cancelled, but officials acknowledged at the time that they would not be able to 'make up the full measure of recent or potential federal research cuts.' The leaders also pointed to recent attempts by the Trump administration to revoke or withhold visas from international students and scholars as another threat, claiming that 'our international community has always been critical to our research mission, and we are deeply concerned about the toll of this uncertainty on our students and on our university as a whole.' According to the most recent figures from the Institute of International Education's Open Doors report, 10,054 international students were enrolled at Johns Hopkins in the 2024-2025 academic year, representing more than a third of its total enrollment. According to the letter, several other actions 'are gaining steam in Congress" that will impair its ability to carry out its mission. Included among those policies are plans to: As a result of these reductions, JHU leadership identified four steps it would take immediately to stabilize its finances: Hopkins officials did not indicate how much money these four steps might save, but they did write that they expected to make further 'moderate but meaningful" expense reductions in next academic year's budget and were also exploring 'more aggressive actions down the road if needed to safeguard our core mission.' The reductions by Johns Hopkins are just the latest illustration of the mounting financial difficulties that major research universities are facing and the extraordinary steps they are taking to address current or anticipated shortfalls. In just the past month alone, Duke University, Columbia University, Rice University, Michigan State University, the University of New Hampshire, the Catholic University of America and Princeton University have all announced some combination of layoffs, buyouts, hiring freezes and other cost reduction measures. But there is a particular, almost poignant, significance to the cutbacks at Hopkins. It was, after all our nation's first research university, cast in the mold of its European predecessors by its inaugural president, Daniel Coit Gilman. And year in and year out, it ranks first among all institutions in the U.S. for the amount of money it spends for research and development. We can debate the reasons why the Trump administration is targeting leading research universities across several fronts, but there is little question that these institutions— and their mission of discovering and disseminating new knowledge — are being diminished. The immediate consequences of that strategy are now being felt. The long-term damage is likely to be much greater.
New York Times
13-03-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Johns Hopkins to Cut More Than 2,000 Workers Funded by Federal Aid
Johns Hopkins University, one of the country's leading centers of scientific research, said on Thursday that it would eliminate more than 2,000 workers in the United States and abroad because of the Trump administration's steep cuts, primarily to international aid programs. The layoffs, the most in the university's history, will involve 247 domestic workers for the university, which is based in Baltimore, and an affiliated center. Another 1,975 positions will be cut in 44 countries. They affect the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and an affiliated nonprofit, Jhpiego. Nearly half the school's total revenue last year came from federally funded research, including $800 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Johns Hopkins is one of the top university recipients of the funding that the administration is aiming to slash. And it appears to be among the most deeply affected of the major research institutions that are reeling from cuts — or the threat of cuts — to federal money that they depend on for research studies and running labs. In a statement on Thursday calling it a 'difficult day,' Johns Hopkins said it was 'immensely proud' of its work on the projects, which included efforts to 'care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water and advance countless other critical, lifesaving efforts around the world.' In a statement last week describing Johns Hopkins's reliance on federal funding, Ron Daniels, the university's president said, 'We are, more than any other American university, deeply tethered to the compact between our sector and the federal government.' Of the school's total operating revenue in 2023, $3.8 billion, or nearly half, came federally funded research. About $800 million comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration is in the process of dismantling. The Trump administration has said that it wants to make the government leaner and more efficient by, among other measures, dramatically cutting financial support for the program, which promotes public health and food security in low-income countries. In ordering cutbacks in the agency, which amount to a 90 percent reduction in its operations, President Trump said that it was run by 'radical left lunatics' and that is was riddled with 'tremendous fraud.' Critics of the decision, however, have said the cuts are ushering in a new era of isolationism that could prove to be dangerous. Sunil Solomon, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, said the cuts would lead to a resurgence in the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. 'What true great nations do is help other nations, but now, it seems, we're America first,' Dr. Solomon said. The administration has also sought to reduce the amount of money that the National Institutes of Health sends to university for research, cuts that have been blocked for now in the courts. If they go into effect, those cuts would reduce federal payments to Johns Hopkins by more than $100 million a year, according to an analysis of university figures. The university, which receives about $1 billion a year in N.I.H. funding and is currently running 600 clinical trials, is one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging those cuts. Separately, the Trump administration also has targeted specific schools for cuts. It slashed $400 million from Columbia's budget last week based on accusations that it had failed to protect students and faculty from antisemitism. Johns Hopkins and Columbia are on a list of 10 schools that the administration says are being scrutinized by an executive branch antisemitism task force. The administration has threatened to reduce federal funding for schools on the list, and others, that it views as being noncompliant with federal civil rights laws. In addition to the more than 2,000 employees whose jobs have been eliminated, the university said that an additional 78 domestic employees and 29 international would be furloughed at reduced schedules. The cuts at Johns Hopkins involve programs funded by U.S.A.I.D. through which American universities have worked with global partners, largely to advance public health and agricultural research. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that 5,200 of the agency's 6,200 contracts had been canceled and that the remaining programs would be operated directly by the State Department, eliminating the need for U.S.A.I.D., which is under the State Department. The reduction in the agency's funding has resulted in program terminations at several departments at Johns Hopkins, including the medical school and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as a nonprofit affiliated with the university, JHPIEGO. Research projects that are being eliminated include international work on tuberculosis, AIDS and cervical cancer, as well as programs that directly benefit residents of Baltimore. Dr. Solomon, the epidemiologist, runs a $50 million, six-year program to improve H.I.V. outcomes in India. He said the budget cuts in his program alone would result in layoffs of about 600 people in the United States and India. The program had led to, among other things, the diagnosis of almost 20,000 people with H.I.V. through contact tracing. 'It's heartbreaking,' Dr. Solomon said. 'Stopping funding isn't going to kill you today, but in six months you're going to see an impact around the world.' Dr. Judd Walson runs the department of international health at Johns Hopkins, which oversaw a five-year, $200 million program to diagnose and control tuberculosis in 20 countries funded by U.S.A.I.D. In Kampala, Uganda, he said, the program was the only way children were diagnosed. 'That's just one example of how the sudden withdrawal of support is having real impacts on survival,' he said. In addition to the loss of jobs at Johns Hopkins, he said, the loss of the programs will lead to a spike in communicable diseases worldwide. What is essentially a shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. has had significant effects at universities around the country. An organization called USAID StopWork, which is tracking the layoffs, said that overall, 14,000 domestic workers had lost their jobs so far, with thousands more anticipated. Research by the Federal Reserve shows that universities serve as major economic engines in many agriculture regions, from Iowa to Florida, meaning that the impact of the administration's cuts to science research will be felt in both red states and left-leaning communities like Baltimore. The elimination of a $500 million agriculture project called Feed the Future, which funded agriculture labs at 19 universities in 17 states, means many of those labs must shutter. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 30 people have lost their jobs at a Feed the Future lab that worked on improving soybean cultivation in Africa, according to Peter D. Goldsmith, a professor of agriculture who ran that laboratory. At Mississippi State University in Starkville, Miss., a fisheries laboratory was shut down, according to Sidney L. Salter, a university spokesman, who did not disclose the number of jobs lost. Economic ripple effects of the funding cuts are expected to spread through the Baltimore area. Johns Hopkins, which enrolls about 30,000 students, is also one of Maryland's largest private employers.
