Stanford Plans to Cut 363 Jobs

Stanford University plans to cut 363 jobs this fall, starting at the end of September, due to financial challenges driven by federal policy changes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The university previously announced a hiring freeze in February.

Stanford president Jon Levin and provost Jenny Martinez noted in a letter to campus that the cuts were part of an effort announced last month to reduce $140 million in the general funds budget. They called the layoffs, reported Tuesday, “the product of a challenging fiscal environment shaped in large part by federal policy changes affecting higher education.”

University officials provided more information in a letter filed with the California Employment Development Department that accompanied the layoff notice. They cited “anticipated changes in federal policy—such as reductions in federal research funding and an increase in the excise tax on investment income” as significant factors driving the reduction of Stanford’s workforce.

Neither letter provided more specifics on who would be affected by the job cuts.

Stanford has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration in recent months, with the Department of Justice launching an investigation into admissions practices at the private university, accusing it and several other institutions of skirting a ban on affirmative action.

Stanford is one of the wealthiest institutions in the U.S., with an endowment valued at $37.6 billion earlier this year; only two other institutions and a system had larger endowments.

Now Stanford joins other wealthy peers with multibillion-dollar endowments that have also enacted cuts recently. Last month, Duke University announced that 599 employees had accepted buyouts, and Northwestern University cut 425 jobs as it navigates a federal research funding freeze. While not as well resourced as Stanford, both are among the nation’s wealthiest universities.