Harvard Freezes Hiring Amid Anxiety Over Trump

Updated March 11, 2025, at 12:23 a.m.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced a University-wide staff and faculty hiring freeze in a message to Harvard affiliates Monday morning, citing uncertainty under the Trump administration.

Garber wrote that the freeze — which is the most drastic step Harvard has taken in response to new White House orders — is designed to help the University preserve its “financial flexibility until we better understand how changes in federal policy will take shape.”

“It is imperative to limit significant new long-term commitments that would increase our financial exposure and make further adjustments more disruptive,” wrote Garber in an email that was also signed by Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82, Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90, and Chief Financial Officer Ritu Kalra.

The freeze will go into effect immediately across all of Harvard’s schools, but is meant to be temporary, according to the email.

In his Monday message, Garber wrote that he would work with administrators to find ways to tighten their spending.

“We are also asking the leadership of Schools and administrative units to scrutinize discretionary and non-salary spending, reassess the scope and timing of capital renewal projects, and conduct a rigorous review of any new multi-year commitments,” he wrote.

Garber’s message comes less than a week after Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra told faculty to “prepare for significant financial challenges” and “build financial capacity.” Hoekstra said that the University had sent out annual budget guidance earlier in the year instructing schools to cut costs and diversify revenue streams — a directive that Garber reiterated in his Monday email.

“We have asked Schools and units to identify strategic adjustments in their spending to build the long-term capacity needed to advance academic priorities at a time of uncertain revenues,” he wrote.

Garber urged administrators at all 13 of Harvard’s schools to “reassess the scope and timing of capital renewal projects,” a mandate that could put upcoming construction projects including the renovation of Eliot House and the construction of the Pritzker Hall economics building — both set to begin in the summer.

Harvard is the latest university to hit pause on hiring as the Trump administration puts millions of dollars of federal funding in limbo.

The University of Pennsylvania issued a similar freeze on hiring and capital expenditures just minutes before Garber’s email went out. Last month, Stanford University, Cornell University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also announced hiring freezes, citing possible research funding cuts.

Despite court orders blocking several of President Donald Trump’s executive orders, the hiring freezes point to a significant financial cost of his presidency for higher education. The White House is still in legal battles over two orders to cut research funding and limit overhead costs.

On Friday, the Trump administration shifted from blanket funding pauses to cut $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University over concerns of campus antisemitism — a move that some Harvard affiliates worried would quickly come to the University’s doorstep too.

The Department of Education announced that it was investigating or monitoring Harvard, warning the University of “potential enforcement actions” just hours after Garber announced the hiring freeze.

The Monday freeze is not the first time the University has preemptively tightened its budget.

In response to the 2008 recession, the FAS issued a similar pause on faculty and staff hiring. School administrators were also asked to prepare plans to cut expenditures by 10 percent, according to Jeffrey S. Flier, who served as dean of Harvard Medical School at the time.

But Flier said that the threats from Washington and resulting freeze could be even more taxing than the Financial Crisis.

“This is more complicated because it could be affecting the finances of the University in multiple ways,” he said.

University officials also employed a hiring freeze in 2020, when former Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow cancelled discretionary spending in addition to suspending hiring and salaries amid the economic turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Still, Thomas D. Parker ’64, a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, said that the current wave is the first time universities have frozen hiring in response to “a political threat” as opposed to national economic downturn.

“It comes because there is this possibility that the federal government — on the direction of a highly politically motivated president — will suddenly withhold funds which had previously been promised,” Parker said.

Flier cautioned that the hiring freeze could be just one of a series of measures Harvard might need to take in response to changing orders from Washington.

“In the worst case scenario, hiring freezes will be a very minor part of the tragedy that will occur,” he said.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.