Boston University’s most recent financial statements and administrative letters show a continuing downward trend that has led to budget cuts and strain across departments. This decline has led some faculty and staff members to question the University’s integrity and commitment to education.
Since 2014, the earliest year with a published financial statement, BU has made more money than it has spent. However, independent audits indicate that its financial standing is increasingly unstable.
The Daily Free Press previously reported in May 2025 that University expenses were rising at a faster rate than its earnings.
This trend continued for the 2025 fiscal year. The University earned roughly $48 million more than what it spent, $36 million less than the previous year’s earnings. The difference between revenue and expenses was less than 2%, the smallest margin since 2014.
BU’s net assets, which include university properties, endowment and investments subtracted from any debts, have increased each year since 2022.
Assets are not always correlated with expense and revenue, said Lawrence Schall, president of the New England Commission of Higher Education. Growing expenses means the University has had to make budget cuts across campus, a trend driven by a variety of factors, Schall said.
“There’s a whole series of things that have had serious implications from policy changes made at the federal level that have required institutions to make significant changes on the expense side that they’ve never had to do before,” he said.
The May 2025 Daily Free Press report also revealed that high-level BU officials, including President Melissa Gilliam and Chief Financial Officer Nicole Tirella, were aware of the “unsustainable” financial situation, citing declining graduate enrollment, the graduate workers’ union contract, and post-COVID inflation as factors, among others.
This year, The Daily Free Press spoke to several faculty and staff members about budget cuts impacting their departments, colleges and overall ability to work and educate. They expressed concern about a lack of transparency surrounding what the University was spending its money on, and a lack of communication on how to implement the changes demanded of them.
July 2025
In a July 7, 2025 letter the University announced that it would implement an average 5% budget reduction across all units for fiscal year 2026. They also announced they would be eliminating about 120 staff positions and about 120 vacancies, and changing the schedule of around 20 positions.
On July 15, 2025, Stan Sclaroff, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Juliana Walsh Kaiser, senior associate dean of Finance and Administration, wrote in an email to CAS faculty and staff that the College would reduce its budget by $7,645,000, which constituted 5% of its annual budget.
Each unit in the College was given a target amount to reduce its operating budget in the 2026 fiscal year, which were to be made on a “recurring basis,” according to the email.
There were reductions to teaching costs, faculty research accounts, operating budgets and faculty and staff personnel costs, according to the email.
October 2025
In an Oct. 9, 2025 letter, the University announced a $30 million shortfall due to low graduate enrollment and missed revenue targets. BU’s administration said it would ask select areas of the University to identify savings to reach the $30 million target by November 14.
BU spokesperson Rachel Lapal Cavallario wrote in a statement to The Daily Free Press that administrators communicate the University’s financial condition and budget through Faculty Assembly, Town Hall meetings, community-wide memos and meetings with senior leadership in academic and administrative units.
November 2025
In November 2025, BU cut PhD admissions for a second year in a row. The Daily Free Press previously reported the University’s cancellation of 14 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, or GRS, programs in multiple humanities and social science departments for the current academic year and reported on six program cancellations for the upcoming 2026-27 academic year. Admissions were reduced in other programs both years.
GRS administrators and a University spokesperson previously noted that the cuts came as a result of funding shortages, as well as the BU graduate workers’ contract and wage increase. The contract guarantees graduate student workers full funding and stipend support for five years, adding financial strain to the college.
Mary Battenfeld, co-president of the BU American Association of University Professors and an American Studies professor, said many humanities programs have not admitted PhD students for the last two years, including her own.
“There are really deep, serious cuts that are eviscerating, in particular, the humanities,” Battenfeld said. “I am worried there is not going to be an American Studies program. That is the direction BU is going, using financial crisis as the reason.”
In November, the College of General Studies Dean Natalie McKnight informed the College’s faculty that only a limited number of professors will be able to join their student cohort in London this upcoming summer semester due to financial cuts from the University, according to a report by The Daily Free Press.
The two-year program, which involves a gap semester freshman fall, a spring semester on-campus and an abroad semester in the summer, will now feature 10 less professors for the summer term. These faculty members will instead be replaced by one London adjunct professor.
CGS master lecturer Scott Marr said he was “disturbed” by the program’s changes, and several current and former CGS students mentioned that the loss of this faculty in the summer will seriously harm the close student-professor relationships the program was able to foster.
End of 2025
Late last year, a former IT administrator at BU was informed that they were being laid off due to apparent “budgetary shortfalls.”
The administrator, who asked to remain anonymous because of possible future job opportunities at the University, said even before their own layoff, their work responsibilities were expanding in order to manage their department’s growing financial constraints.
“I was receiving more responsibilities every couple of weeks,” the administrator said. “When I was there, everybody was overworked.”
While there were several rounds of changes and layoffs that happened before their own, the administrator said there was very little communication as to how these changes were actually helping BU out of its financial struggles.
“It seemed like the restructuring that was going on was not strategic,” the administrator said. “It was reactive.”
March – April 2026
In an April 2 Q&A with BU Today, BU Chief Financial Officer Nicole Tirella explained that the institution was in a position of financial strength, but that it faces mounting structural pressures that threaten its long-term stability and require operational change. This created an apparent need to overhaul the University’s financial planning systems, Tirella said.
Keith Vincent, an associate professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature, said his department is also feeling the effects of the administration’s budget cuts.
“I feel like universities are under attack right now, and this is the result that we’re seeing,” Vincent said.
In a meeting with CAS Associate Dean Joseph Bizup on March 25, Vincent said he was informed that the World Languages Department would face a lack of course releases next year as a result of current budget constraints.
There are 10 coordinators in the department. Ordinarily, each of them would be allowed to teach one less class. Now, only one course release will be given to a singular coordinator, which will be decided between department faculty based on necessity.
“Having that course release was something that made it possible for them to do their jobs effectively without too much personal sacrifice,” Vincent said. “It was hard to see that go.”
Vincent said much of the information he’s received regarding the institution’s budgeting constraints comes from either the dean of CAS or from the University’s intra-campus communications.
“They’re not really speaking our language when they are using language that, to me, just sounds like it came right off a slide deck of a consulting company and doesn’t do a lot in terms of actually giving us the fuller picture of what’s happening with the budget,” Vincent said.
Battenfeld said BU’s AAUP chapter and other campus groups are fundraising to conduct an independent audit of the University’s finances. BU’s AAUP chapter wants the University to establish a faculty-inclusive budget committee to address the lack of transparency from administration, she said.
“They’re basing their policies on these outside consultants that they paid a lot of money to, not conversation among our students, faculty and staff, who should be the ones determining our future,” Battenfeld said.
Raahi Mehta contributed to the reporting of this article.
