Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University is taking steps to prepare the organization for potentially “devastating federal cuts” that could affect its ability to provide care to its community.
In a June 2 letter to the university community, Johns Hopkins President Ron Daniels, Provost Ray Jayawardhana, PhD, and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Laurent Heller said annual pay increases are being paused for certain employees and staff hiring has been frozen amid challenges the university is facing with respect to its academic and research mission.
“We shared in March the loss of more than $800 million at Hopkins from USAID grant terminations,” the leaders wrote. “Since January, we also have had 90 grants terminated by other agencies, resulting in the loss of more than $50 million in federal research funding, with more terminations arriving nearly every week.”
Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876 as the first research university in the U.S., includes a major healthcare enterprise, Johns Hopkins Medicine. Johns Hopkins Health System is part of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Leaders said the pipeline of new federal research awards at the university is also down by nearly two-thirds since January, compared to the same period in 2024, “despite continued high scores and an increase in submissions by our researchers.”
“We fear that this downward trend may be laying the groundwork for deep cuts to the extramural research programs at the NIH, NSF, DOD and DOE — further fraying the extraordinary and longstanding research partnership between universities and the federal government and significantly curtailing Hopkins’ capacity to undertake our core academic and research mission and to sustain the people who allow us to realize it,” they wrote.
Other moves about which leaders noted concerns include a proposed increase in the endowment tax (and changes to its calculation); proposed cuts to Medicaid, “which risks excluding vulnerable patients and increasing the cost of care provided by our School of Medicine faculty and the Johns Hopkins Health System”; and proposed cuts to the federal Grad PLUS loan program and Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for medical residents.
In recent testimony to the Baltimore City Council, Maria Harris Tildon, vice president of government, community and economic partnerships for Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, provided insights into the effects on healthcare.
Ms. Harris Tildon told the council that the healthcare system in Maryland, including Johns Hopkins Health System and its Baltimore hospitals — Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center — “helps cover gaps in our healthcare system for the most vulnerable, by providing approximately $83 million in care to uninsured and underinsured patients. These institutions are now facing the prospect of devastating federal cuts.”
She said the federal government covers 90% of the state’s Medicaid costs.
University leaders also shared concerns about “recent moves by the federal government to revoke or withhold visas from eligible international students and scholars” and “a host of proposed actions that are gaining steam in Congress and will seriously impair our ability to carry out our mission, including a proposed cap on the reimbursement rate for research-related facilities and administrative costs, which could reduce our federal research funding by more than $300 million annually.”
Amid these challenges, the university said it has been developing strategies for various scenarios and is taking the following immediate steps to shore up university and divisional finances:
- Delaying decisions on annual pay increases for most employees. Leaders said raises that typically take effect July 1 “will be paused for all employees earning more than $80,000 per year. This pause will allow time to understand the full nature and magnitude of the federal government’s proposed changes.”
- Implementing a staff hiring freeze across the university for new and existing positions. “Divisional leadership will retain discretion for approving exceptions to this temporary measure, including for mission-critical positions and those covered by grants or other restricted funds,” leaders wrote.
- Reducing capital construction and renovation plans by approximately 10% to 20%. “Final decisions on these reductions will be made over the summer in consultation with the divisions, with an emphasis on continuing mission-critical projects, essential deferred maintenance, and projects that are already far along in the permitting, demolition and construction process,” leaders said.
- Reducing discretionary spending on expenses such as travel, food, supplies and professional services.
Johns Hopkins also said in its letter that it is “continuing to advocate and take steps to address the impacts of these federal actions” and remains “both scrupulous in our compliance with the law and thoughtful in how we sustain our capacity to be a place that prizes pluralism in all its respects, advances opportunity, and combats discrimination.”
More information is available on this new Johns Hopkins website.
