Northwestern Announces Hiring Freeze To Address Financial Strain

EVANSTON, IL — Northwestern University announced Tuesday it would be implementing a faculty and staff hiring freeze among other cost-cutting measures due to increasing strain on the institution's finances.

In January, the university released its financial update message that cited rising costs related to compliance requirements, health care expenses, litigation, labor contracts, employee benefits as serious financial impacts.

And now with potential changes on the federal level — including increases in the endowment tax, constraint on the admission of international students, caps on indirect cost recovery and a likely reduction in federal research funding — officials said the building financial issues must be addressed.

"Like a number of our peer universities, we have now reached a moment when the University must take a series of cost-cutting measures designed to ensure our institution’s fiscal stability now and into an uncertain future. These are not decisions we come to lightly," university officials said in a statement.

Northwestern announced it would be implementing the following cost-cutting measures in the coming months:

• A 0% merit pool with no bonuses in lieu of merit increases
• Reductions in administrative and academic unit permanent budgets, which are likely to include decreases in the total number of staff positions
• A faculty and staff hiring freeze
• Changes to our health insurance program to tame double-digit percentage increases in costs
• Modest changes to our tuition benefits program that will not affect the tuition benefit for dependents of current employees
• Additional non-personnel budget reductions, including a reduction in planned capital expenditures for buildings and systems, that will impact service levels offered by some central units

"We understand that none of this is news you want to hear — and it certainly is not news we want to deliver. Nevertheless, we feel that transparency is important so that everyone has a shared understanding of the challenges that lie ahead," university officials said.