University of Chicago braces for job cuts amid effort to shed $100M in costs

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Dive Brief:

• The University of Chicago is looking to cut $100 million in expenses after two years of deficits and “profound federal policy changes” under the Trump administration, according to university President Paul Alivisatos. 
• In community messages Thursday, Alivisatos said that goal requires staff reductions. This year, the university plans to eliminate 100 to 150 staff jobs, including through layoffs, mostly tied to discontinuing university programs and activities. 
• The institution also plans to reduce senior leadership roles, pause admissions for over a dozen Ph.D. and master’s programs, decrease the number of spots for doctoral students, scale back capital projects, and review its research spending with an eye toward potentially cutting some academic centers.

Dive Insight:

Like many university presidents in recent months, Alivisatos pointed to the past eight months of policy disruption under the Trump administration as having “created multiple and significant new uncertainties and strong downward pressure on our finances.”

In that environment, “steps ahead have become much steeper in the face of proximate challenges,” Alivisatos said in a message to staff.

University of Chicago already faced financial pressure from rising expenses before the year began. In fiscal 2024, the institution reported a $193.7 million operating deficit — even as its revenue grew. That shortfall represented an improvement from the year before, when it posted a $201.7 million deficit.

“Despite important progress that all of you worked so hard to contribute to over the last two years, our annual income still falls short of our expenses,” Alivisatos said in a message to faculty. “That is not something that we can allow to persist.”

The university is taking a kitchen sink approach to its budget, reducing spending in multiple areas while also trying to ensure its core operations and services remain strong. But employee compensation remains the university’s largest expense and a major area for cutting. 

University of Chicago Provost Katherine Baicker noted Thursday that the latest round of budget cuts will build on previous institutional efforts to reduce costs, which included voluntary retirements, layoffs and hiring freezes.

The staffing cuts will be tied to specific activities and programs that the institution plans to end, rather than an across-the-board cut, the university said in a FAQ on the operational restructuring. 

“The aim is to do fewer things well, rather than doing the same things with fewer people,” it said.

The university is not planning any faculty cuts, instead opting to maintain the current number after past years of growth. 

However, the University of Chicago will pause Ph.D. enrollment of 19 programs for the 2026-27 academic year — nearly all of them in the liberal arts and humanities, including anthropology, political economics, English, theater, art history and public policy. The move has garnered national attention amid concerns the reduction could harm the academic landscape at the university and beyond.

The University of Chicago is also rethinking its approach to campus construction. The institution can no longer afford to build primarily via debt financing, and newly established rules require philanthropic or other external support for building projects before starting them, according to Alivisatos. The university has “substantially” scaled down plans for a new engineering and science building, Alivisatos said.