Harvard Kennedy School, Chan School resort to layoffs, citing financial headwinds

The Harvard Kennedy School announced Wednesday it will lay off employees and turn to other cost-saving measures as it grapples with “significant financial challenges” due to actions taken by the Trump administration. The university’s Chan School of Public Health shared similar news in April — and again, earlier this month.

“This is an extremely difficult moment, and one that we did everything possible to avoid,” Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein said in a Wednesday email to faculty and staff. “I am truly sorry that we need to take this step.”

Weinstein in his email cited “massive” federal funding cuts to research, a possible increase to the endowment tax and threats to international student enrollment as factors that ratcheted up the school’s financial uncertainty.

A Kennedy School spokesman on Thursday did not specify the extent of the school’s layoffs. The dean’s email said affected staff would start getting notified Wednesday afternoon.

The layoffs follow a series of cost-saving steps the Kennedy School instituted over the past six months, according to Weinstein’s email, though “those efforts alone will not be enough.” Those changes included shrinking the school’s office footprint, pausing increases to merit pay and instituting a hiring freeze.

Notice of the Kennedy School layoffs follows on the heels of the school’s Tuesday announcement of a contingency plan for international students in case the federal government prevails in preventing them from returning to Harvard or entering the U.S.

The Chan School of Public Health — which among all of Harvard’s schools is most heavily reliant on federal and outside funds — is taking similar cost-cutting measures, including “more layoffs” this month, according to a June 2 email from Dean of Faculty Andrea Baccarelli obtained by WBUR. The school already began job cuts as far back as April, according to the Harvard Crimson.

The Trump administration cut almost all direct federal grants to the Chan school, Baccarelli said in his email. Government and other outside funding accounts for 59% of the school’s operating budget.

Baccarelli said the school has made “deep cuts” to its administrative and operations budgets and will assume debt to fund its research. It is also set to receive some of the $250 million dollars from central funding pledged by Harvard leadership to support research during this time of financial uncertainty.

“These will both be critical sources of revenue,” Baccarelli said. “But neither will be enough to sustain our current activities.”

His letter paints a bleak picture of life at the Chan school under the Trump administration, which has slashed or frozen more than $3 billion of federal funding university-wide as part of a scorched campaign to pressure the institution to comply with its demands. The school has sued the government over the frozen funds, and has reportedly restarted negotiations with the Trump administration, according to reports from the New York Times and Harvard Crimson.

Heads of research projects are tightening budgets. Chan school leadership will decide which projects will receive limited funding to support their existence through June 2026. Projects not prioritized will begin to wind down.

Tenured faculty who have a salary gap due to funding cuts will shift to a 10-month academic salary.

“We must adapt to a new world,” Baccarelli wrote. “Each of us is tasked with reorienting our activities to match this new reality.”

A spokeswoman for the Chan school did not comment on the extent of additional pending layoffs.

The cuts are not isolated to these two schools. Harvard Medical School also announced staff cuts back in April. School communities are bracing for these changes as Harvard nears the end of its fiscal year early next week.