ITHACA, N.Y. — Nearly 3 weeks after news broke that Cornell University was close to settling a federal funding battle with the Trump Administration, there is a new message to the Cornell community on its financial future.
The University is expected to pay $100 million to settle a federal investigation into antisemitism and student protests on the War in Gaza. Almost a billion dollars of federal funding is froze for the university at the moment.
It would be similar to a $221 million deal that Columbia University struck with the Trump Administration in July.
In a statement on August 22, signed by four members of Cornell’s leadership team, it “outlines acute fiscal pressures arising from a number of factors.”
“Urgent action is necessary, both to reduce costs immediately and to correct our course over time — achieving an institutional structure that enables us to balance our budgets over the long term,” the statement read.
You can read the full statement below:
We write today with an update on our work to ensure Cornell’s long-term financial stability and institutional strength.
As we shared in our June message, Cornell faces acute fiscal pressures arising from a number of factors. Contractions in government funding, the marked growth of our staff, increases in employment costs and other expenses, significant legal and regulatory expenses, clinical reimbursement pressures at Weill Cornell Medicine, and an uncertain and unprecedented federal landscape have combined to make significant changes necessary in our operations and budget. Urgent action is necessary, both to reduce costs immediately and to correct our course over time — achieving an institutional structure that enables us to balance our budgets over the long term.
Our work toward this goal will progress in several phases, beginning with the immediate budget reductions already underway for the current fiscal year across our Ithaca, Cornell AgriTech, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Cornell Tech campuses. Hiring on all campuses remains restricted indefinitely, with rare exceptions from campus-based position control committees.
The second step in this process requires that we reimagine our university-wide operations and permanently reduce costs across our campuses, colleges, and units. Currently, we are engaged in an institutional analysis of our entire budgetary structure, seeking ways to control expenses by finding new efficiencies and reducing duplication of work. Cornell’s decentralized structure is part of our tradition, but a source of significant administrative inefficiencies; part of our task is identifying opportunities to scale and regularize our academic support systems across units with unique characteristics and needs without compromising our institutional excellence. This means centralizing some functions that are duplicated in colleges and units, while retaining those components that are necessary.
Reducing costs will mean reconsidering how we handle all of our processes, from procurement to technology, and rethinking, in fundamental ways, how we allocate our resources. It will also, inevitably, mean reducing our workforce — a painful prospect for a community like ours, with a strong sense of shared identity and purpose. We are committed to moving forward with the thoughtful input of senior leadership across Cornell, and to updating the community regularly about our progress, including through a series of in-person town hall meetings beginning this week on our Ithaca and New York state campuses. We anticipate that the careful work of planning and analysis will be completed this fall, with reports and phased implementation of restructuring beginning late in this calendar year and continuing into 2026.
These changes will be difficult for our community but are vital for our future. We are grateful for the work of every member of our faculty and staff and committed to taking the steps necessary to ensure that Cornell pursues its academic mission sustainably for generations to come.
In appreciation,
Michael I. Kotlikoff
President
Kavita Bala
Provost
Robert A. Harrington
Provost for Medical Affairs
Chris Cowen
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer