Boston University Cuts 120 Staff After Trump Funding Squeeze

Boston University is eliminating staff and reducing spending as the school grapples with the Trump administration’s push to reshape higher education and a pullback in research funding.

BU will cut 120 positions and another 120 vacancies as part of a broader effort to curb its budget by 5% for fiscal 2026, President Melissa Gilliam and other administrators wrote in a message to faculty and employees on Monday. The job cuts and spending reduction are necessary to respond to “a national renegotiation of how the country’s higher education model will be funded,” Gilliam wrote in the message.