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USC, caught up in multiple investigations from the Trump administration, announced a slate of cuts that includes staff who hire Freezes as it writes what was called “federal funding uncertainty” in a letter released Monday.
Among the nine austerity measures is a reassessment of capital expenditure projects and restrictions on discretionary spending, according to a letter signed by university leaders, including President Carolfort.
USC’s actions come at a time of unprecedented threats to universities by the Trump administration. It pledges to cut federal funding, including major medical and scientific research grants, to agencies that do not comply with the directive. Trump ordered campus to curb anti-Semitism. Eliminate diversity, equity and inclusive programs. Transgender athletes are prohibited from competing in women’s sports.
“Recent developments require additional steps to increase financial resilience in the face of exceptional financial uncertainty,” said USC, which received approximately $570 million in research funding in 2024.
The belt tightening plan, which came into effect immediately, comes just a few months after the Internal Financial Planning Task Force said in November that USC’s $158 million budget deficit would require various “cost control measures.”
The Trump administration announced that the USC is facing an investigation from the Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Office on anti-Semitism allegations, and announced it will be visited by the Federal Anti-Semitism Task Force. Scrutiny stems mostly from allegations of Palestinian protests last spring and camps fired by police who arrested several protesters.
The university has already made substantial changes. In February, USC removed the website for school-wide offices of inclusion and diversity, integrated into separate businesses, scrubbed several university and department-level DEI statements, renamed faculty positions, and in some cases online references to scholarships for black and producer students. Last spring, we enacted restrictions on campus protests.
USC is not just about enacting a cost-cutting plan under the threat of losing research funds. Earlier this month, the University of California announced a job freeze and other measures during an investigation by the Trump administration, which denies campus anti-Semitism. Dozens of additional universities are investigating alleged anti-Semitism or race-based discrimination by the U.S. Department of Education.
Several USC teachers said they supported Monday’s announcement in light of Trump’s recent actions.
“Frankly, there have been many reasons why USC has been bothered over the past 15 years, but this is not one of them,” said Derby Sachs, a professor of psychology. “I think everyone realizes that this is universal for research. [universities] Nationwide. The Trump administration is acting with such hostility and whims. …There is so much maliciousness. ”
Sanjay Madhav, Associate Professor of Practice at USC Viterbi Engineering School, said he is most concerned about how long-standing plans and projects can be promoted across the university, including hiring freezes and ambitious computing initiatives in the interview stage of faculty positions.
“We…we’re planning on a flight for the next few weeks,” he said. “To be able to interview all these candidates is a lot of concern and potentially we may not be able to do our job for them.”
However, Madhav, who is involved in the unional organization’s efforts for non-tenure-track professors, lamented that he and other similarly located faculty “have no opinions on what decisions are being made because there is no seat at the table.”
USC declined to comment and referenced the era in Monday’s letter and financial planning notes.
Trump, who opposed the university’s “Marxist” diversity managers and the accredited “radical left,” moved quickly to reshape the university landscape of a country that is often said to have the world’s best higher education system.
Among other actions, the administration’s National Institutes of Health issued rules in February that would significantly cut funds related to medical research, which the universities said were essential for their businesses and scientific discoveries. A federal judge issued an interim injunction earlier this month pending cuts.
Saxbe said letters from Folt and others are the subject of discussion about Slack group chats with colleagues who expressed “confusion” about how some of the cuts would be implemented.
“We’re just in this very confusing landscape,” she said. “There’s so much uncertainty that I don’t know how long I’ll tighten the belt or how long it will last.”
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