Federal policy changes like grant terminations and increased barriers for international students have the potential to throw the University off track, administrators said at a town hall last week.
The University’s budget deficit shrank by 44 percent, from $288 to $160 million, in 2025. “That’s probably our biggest singular reduction in any year ever” outside of the COVID era, CFO Ivan Samstein told the Maroon.
UChicago’s pending sale of the Center for Research in Security Prices to Morningstar has attracted scrutiny regarding financial pressures on the University, but CRSP’s chair told the Maroon the move was independently motivated.
In an October 15 interview with the Maroon, University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos discussed doctoral education amid admissions pauses, the University’s protection of free speech and its community, and how AI might fit into the Core Curriculum.
Members of multiple unions rallied in protest of the University’s sweeping budget cuts and in solidarity with the Division of the Arts & Humanities, which faces a major restructuring and an admissions pause announced over the summer.
Provost Katherine Baicker and CFO Ivan Samstein sat down with the Maroon to discuss the impacts of grant freezes, visa revocations, and other federal policy changes on the University’s finances.
As the University continues to weather a challenging financial landscape, administrators signaled cautious optimism—and a need for flexibility—in addressing the year ahead.
Despite its institutional commitment to freedom of expression and inquiry, which relies on access to information, the University of Chicago has long operated under a shroud of secrecy relative to its peers.
The Department of Education informed educational institutions in a letter Friday that they must end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and policies or risk losing federal funding.
In a February 11 email, University President Paul Alivisatos warned that the NIH’s cuts to indirect cost funding threatened the University’s core interests.
“This is the biggest effort to reshape the U.S. Constitution since the Civil War,” David Super, a Georgetown University administrative and constitutional law professor, told the Maroon.
