PROVIDENCE – Brown University is implementing multiple measures to address the budget deficit the Ivy League institution is facing, including implementing a temporary hiring freeze and salary reductions for top administrators.
Brown Provost Francis J. Doyle III and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham announced Thursday in a community letter the Ivy League institution is holding off on hiring new employees for all positions through the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year, with exceptions. This is being done in part because Brown is
facing a $46 million structural deficit that’s expected to worsen in future years.
The university already approved
raising next year’s tuition by 4.5% to help address that deficit. Additionally, Doyle and Latham in the note said Brown needs to be more active in managing its expenditures based on “uncertainty [the university] now faces from federal actions.
“We recognize that not filling positions will pose workload challenges,” Doyle and Latham wrote. “We will continue to use current policies and processes to provide additional compensation to staff who are required to assume temporary additional duties that are beyond the scope of their normal job responsibilities for specified periods of time.”
Positions exempt from the hiring freeze include jobs that support “critical infrastructure” at the university, such as information technology or other maintenance, ensuring health and safety on campus, deemed critical to academic and research operations, and “essential to ensure compliance with regulatory and legal requirements,” Doyle and Latham wrote.
Additionally, Doyle, Latham and Brown President Christina H. Paxson will all take 10% salary cuts as well. Brown is also freezing temporarily all nonessential travel and slowing discretionary spending. The university is reducing spending on meals, catering, events, supplies and the use of external consultants “to the fullest extent possible,” Doyle and Latham said.
“Our goal, now and into the future, is to position Brown to effectively advance our teaching, learning, and research mission while adhering, as best we can, to our ever true principles for financial management and continuing to treat all community members with dignity and respect,” Doyle and Latham wrote.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette.
