Northwestern University is cutting 425 positions in response to a $790 million federal funding freeze imposed by the Trump administration, a move that has sparked outrage among faculty and raised concerns about the future of academic independence.
The university confirmed Tuesday that nearly half of the affected roles were vacant, but did not specify how many employees are being laid off. The cuts represent the most severe in a series of cost-saving measures implemented since the funding halt was announced earlier this year.
“This is a difficult day for Northwestern, and we are carrying out today’s actions with care and compassion,” the university said in a statement. “Today’s reduction in workforce will help ensure our university can continue to serve its mission to be one of the world’s great institutions of teaching and research for generations to come.”
President Michael Schill informed the campus community via email that the school would trim its staffing budget by 5%. Personnel expenses account for over half of the university’s annual spending, he noted. Schill also cited increasing health care costs, legal expenses, and federal constraints on international student enrollment as compounding pressures.
Jon Yates, a university spokesperson, said Northwestern is facing “mounting financial pressures that threaten the university’s immediate and long-term financial stability,” echoing challenges seen across the higher education sector. In addition to job cuts, the school has enacted a hiring freeze, scaled back non-personnel spending, and paused annual pay raises.
However, faculty members say they were not consulted before the layoffs. “These staff layoffs are among the many shots across the bow that the Schill administration is sending on behalf of the Trump administration to the detriment of the Northwestern community,” Jacqueline Stevens, president of the university’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter told WBEZ Chicago.
Some faculty are urging university leadership not to capitulate to federal demands. “This kind of agreement ends the Northwestern that so many people in Chicagoland are so proud of,” said sociology professor Laura Beth Nielsen, who helped organize a letter opposing any settlement with the administration. “Don’t give in to this blackmail.”
The Trump administration has tied the funding freeze to an investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus—part of a broader crackdown that has also targeted Columbia, Harvard, and Cornell. Columbia recently agreed to a $220 million settlement in exchange for reinstated federal research funding.
For the laid-off staff, the toll is personal. “I’m upset that these very important works are being affected because of choices of a federal administration that doesn’t understand the importance of what’s being done at universities,” one former employee told WBEZ.
