Following his inauguration in January, U.S. President Donald Trump brought along a new team of advisers and a playbook for higher education. The administration unleashed a slew of demands on colleges and universities in what has been seen by higher education leaders as an “overreach” on academic freedom by the federal government.
At the forefront of top political adviser Stephen Miller, Trinity ’07, and Trump’s agenda was mandating universities axe diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, limit international student enrollment and decrease their reliance on federally funded research. The administration also changed student loan policies, cut Medicaid reimbursement rates and increased the tax rate universities would have to pay on their endowment.
For institutions like Duke that operate both a University and a Health System, the lapses in federal funding cut key revenue streams. In response, Duke enacted a $364 million cost-cutting program, becoming one of the first universities to trim its personnel pool amid the federal funding changes and one of the institutions with the largest budgetary cuts.
The program has produced $229 million in savings across Duke’s departments and schools for the fiscal year 2026 budget, according to a September Academic Council presentation by Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis and Rachel Satterfield, vice president for finance and treasurer. The goal, though, is to reduce its expense base by $350 million by 2030, which Duke aims to accomplish by saving an additional $47 million in each of the next two years, another $30 million in fiscal year 2029 and $11 million the year after. That leaves Duke with $364 million saved — $14 million above its initial target.
Here is how the program started this year.
In February the Trump administration sought to cap Facilities and Administrative reimbursement rates to universities for grants funded through institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to 15%, from their current levels of around 60%. The directive faced legal challenges and is still blocked in the courts. The administration also called upon the funding agencies to terminate all grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion, freeze award money to certain universities at their discretion and decrease the number of grant opportunities available to researchers.
In the face of uncertainty, Duke has prepared for the worst, as the move on F&A rates alone would cost it an estimated $194 million per year in lost funding. As part of this effort, in March, Duke President Vincent Price announced that the University would embark on a cost-reduction program, which began with a hiring freeze, a review of administrative efficiency and reducing non-personnel expenses.
At his annual address to faculty a week after the announcement, Price emphasized the cost reduction program’s importance for moving forward, saying that Duke “no longer enjoy(s) at this moment” many of the federal resources it relied upon in the past including support from the American public and the government.
“… We should be prepared not only to seek cost-reductions across the university, but also to re-imagine our work and consider how we might strategically realign around our highest priorities,” Price added.
In mid-April, University administrators said in a webinar that “employment action” would be “inescapable.” Two weeks later, the University announced a voluntary separation incentive program (VSIP) — buyouts for eligible staff. Ultimately, it extended offers to 939 staff members, of which 599 accepted, constituting 5% of Duke’s full-time staff.
At the time, Duke administrators did not respond to The Chronicle’s requests for comment on the breakdown of departures by department, but The Chronicle received multiple reports of broad cuts across the libraries, student affairs, Office of Information Technology and communications. The VSIP targeted staff across a range of seniority levels and tenures who were given 45 days to accept or decline, during which they were largely prohibited from discussing the terms or their decisions with anyone outside their family or legal counsel. Much of the severance package was covered by a nondisclosure agreement, sources who accepted the package said.
From the beginning, Duke made clear that if too few staff members accepted voluntary severance packages, non-voluntary layoffs would follow. In June, Price warned that would “likely” be the case. The layoffs largely took place in mid-August as students were making their way to campus and amounted to 45 employees being laid off by September.
“We will, for the foreseeable future, have to be smaller — and do our work with fewer people,” Price said in the June message.
Even faculty members were affected by the cuts. In June, Price announced a retirement incentive program for eligible faculty members, which 82 of 273 faculty took. In Duke’s School of Medicine, which was particularly affected by NIH award cuts, tenured faculty members who were underperforming could come to face salary cuts per a summer proposal.
The School of Medicine also decommissioned the Jones Research Building in its quest to achieve its own goal of cutting $125 million in yearly expenditures.
When students and faculty returned to campus in mid-August, things were different. Trinity first-years arriving on campus were greeted not by the typical team of more than 300 volunteer advisers — many of whom had taken the voluntary buyouts — but by a new team of 11 full-time advisers. Faculty who had worked with subject librarians in past years were surprised by the newfound absence of their colleagues, which they say was done without consultation.
The unstable communication between University administration and faculty prompted discussions over the meaning of “shared governance” at September’s Arts & Sciences Council meeting, with Trinity dean Gary Bennett acknowledging the need to be “much more clear (and) straightforward about the ways we talk about our finances and our administrative operations.”
Throughout the University’s year of cost cutting, various people and groups have called on Duke to change course. In May, the American Association of University Professors called for the University to halt its buyouts and layoffs until faculty and staff can be “fully involved” in decision making, and in June, Duke community members signed a petition calling for Price and other administrators to take pay cuts.
After other schools signed agreements with the Trump administration, Duke alumni penned a letter to Price urging him to resist Trump’s “authoritarian intrusions,” and Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams commented to Politico that Duke should “remain firm on their values.”
Heading into 2026, the cost cutting has slowed down as Duke expects to operate on a $74 million budget surplus for fiscal year 2026. Per the September Academic Council meeting, the focus now will be on strategic realignment — shifting the allocation of dwindled resources to Duke’s priority areas.
“In the aggregate, we’re so much better positioned than had we not taken the action we did,” Ennis said to the Council.
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This story was originally published by The Chronicle at Duke University and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.