U Cal freezes hiring amid looming federal and state funding cuts
Michael Gennaro
(CN) — The University of California intends to impose a systemwide hiring freeze as part of an effort to minimize the impact of federal and state funding cuts, UC President Michael Drake said Wednesday.
In a letter to students and faculty, Drake said he directed all University of California locations to implement other cost-saving plans, such as delaying business trips or routine maintenance.
The University of California system is one of the largest in the world, with ten campuses across the Golden State, nearly 300,000 students, 173,000 staff members and 25,000 faculty members.
Drake cited President Donald Trump’s January executive orders — which could threaten federal funding for the system and its research — as a crucial reason for implementing the hiring freeze, as well as the 2025-2026 state budget, which calls for an 8% cut to the UC system’s budget. That cut amounts to a nearly $400 million loss for the UC system.
“These actions affect colleges and universities across the country," Drake said."As one of the most innovative, research-focused public institutions in the nation, these proposed changes would have a particularly profound impact on the University of California."
Other universities across the country have recently announced similar hiring freezes. Harvard and Stanford have temporarily paused hiring, and Johns Hopkins University announced last week that it would cut more than 2,000 jobs after the Trump administration terminated $800 million worth of federal grants for the university.
“The new administration in Washington, D.C., has announced a number of executive orders and proposed policy changes, including ones that threaten funding for lifesaving research, patient care, and education support,” Drake said, noting that through UC’s 80-year partnership with the federal government, grants and research contracts have helped researchers come close to cures for childhood leukemia and develop new methods for battling HIV-AIDS and for sickle-cell anemia, among other scientific breakthroughs.
Drake said the ending of that partnership is a “is a lose, lose, lose, lose proposition for our country,” and that if the Trump administration follows through on federal cuts, it could slow the development of cures for diseases and other societal problems.
Drake said that UC will continue to lobby state and federal officials to protect its funding but called the threat of cuts “existential.” Drake said that each campus will independently decide how and when to implement the hiring freeze.
In the letter to students, Drake wrote that UC’s legal team had been preparing for this moment to protect the university system but that any wins in court would likely not be enough to prevent “significant financial challenges.”
Last month, the university joined Democratic state attorneys general who sued the Trump administration over proposed cuts to medical research funded by the National Institute of Health.
Notably, Drake did not say UC would lay any employees off, but some have speculated that UC campus chancellors may begin cutting workers to save money. The university system is already facing criticisms from several of its more than two dozen unions, some of which are in negotiations for higher pay and better workplace environments.
The unrest culminated in thousands of research, technical and health care workers walking off the job last month and urging the university to address staffing shortages, among other issues.