University Statements

Dear Cornell community,

We write to update staff and faculty about the profound financial challenges facing the university. The spring semester was unlike anything ever seen in higher education, with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research contracts at Cornell terminated or frozen, and serious threats to future research funding, federal financial aid, medical reimbursement, and research cost recovery, along with an anticipated tax on our endowment income, and rapidly escalating legal expenses. These acute funding challenges come as Cornell has experienced a marked and unsustainable increase in expenses due to inflation, the expansion of our workforce, and other cost pressures.

We have been using institutional resources to try to plug these funding holes in the short term, but these interim measures are not sustainable. We must immediately address our significant financial shortfalls by reducing costs and enacting permanent change to our operational model. This will require financial austerity in all areas of the university, as we comprehensively review and restructure university operations and programs, and it will require the participation and support of everyone at Cornell, as we seek the optimal ways to reduce costs while maintaining, to the maximum extent possible, the strength of our academic community.

Today, we announce the following actions:

• We will begin a comprehensive review of programs and headcount across the university. Since June 2021, Cornell’s workforce has grown by more than 15% — greatly outpacing our revenue. This review will engage personnel from every campus, college, school, and administrative unit to streamline processes, create efficiencies, and reduce duplication of work.
• As we prepare to unify our information systems across campuses, we will pursue opportunities to simplify and consolidate operations and deploy technology where appropriate.
• Hiring on all campuses will remain restricted for the 2025-2026 academic year.
• Discretionary expenditures including travel, food, and purchasing will remain restricted for the 2025-2026 academic year.
• Research operations on all campuses will be reviewed to make them more cost effective and efficient.

These efforts will reduce Cornell’s workforce — a necessity to ensure Cornell’s long-term financial viability. While we will make every effort to downsize by attrition, we anticipate involuntary reductions in headcount across the university.

It is important that every member of this community understands both the scale of the challenges our university faces, and the seriousness of the risks. Cornell’s funding model, developed over 160 years, is strong and diversified, and has carried us successfully through many past crises. We are now experiencing simultaneous attacks or threats on every element of that model. While we are confident that we will weather this crisis, we will only do so by working together to make the difficult, but necessary, changes to ensure that Cornell will continue “to do the greatest good” for many years to come.

In appreciation,

Michael I. Kotlikoff
President

Kavita Bala
Provost

Robert A. Harrington
Provost for Medical Affairs

Chris Cowen
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer