Columbia University Slashes 180 Staffers After Trump Cuts Funds

Columbia University said it is cutting nearly 180 staffers after President Trump canceled $400 million in federal funding to the Ivy League school over its handling of pro-Palestine and anti-Israel protestors.

The Manhattan-based university, in an announcement on Tuesday, said the cuts represent about 20% of staffers who are funded by the terminated grants.

“We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources,” the university said in a blog post. “Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.”

Roles that will be cut include research tied to COVID-19, chronic illnesses and opioid withdrawal syndrome.

Columbia added that it will be “prepared to reestablish” some roles “if support is restored.” The university had an endowment of $14.8 billion last year, according to its fiscal year 2024 report.

The cuts come after President Trump canceled $400 million in government funding for Columbia in March because, as he said, it had failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment from pro-Gaza protestors. U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said “persistent harassment of Jewish students” led to the pulled funding, adding that Columbia had “abandoned” its obligation to protect Jewish students on campus.

Columbia has been a hotbed for anti-Israel protests in the past two years, with pro-Palestine protestors occupying a building on campus in one dramatic scene in April 2024; several of those protestors were suspended or expelled earlier this year.

Columbia, in its blog post on the staff cuts, said it may need to take further steps to reduce spending in the near future.

“In the coming weeks and months, we will need to continue to take actions that preserve our financial flexibility and allow us to invest in areas that drive us forward,” the university explained. “This is a deeply challenging time across all higher education, and we are attempting to navigate through tremendous ambiguity with precision, which will be imperfect at times.”

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