The president of Carnegie Mellon University spoke out about what he calls a shifting landscape across American higher education in a lengthy letter issued late Wednesday. The message, addressed to members of the university community, is the first time CMU president Farnam Jahanian has spoken out about uncertain federal funding since the school joined a lawsuit to block funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health.
“We are witnessing a time of profound change — challenges that test us and opportunities that demand our boldest ideas,” Jahanian wrote. “The potential harm to our national research and innovation enterprise is real.”
The letter addresses a range of issues from research funding to admissions and a congressional committee’s demand for information on Chinese students.
Some research universities — including CMU’s neighboring University of Pittsburgh — have limited or paused admissions while making sense of the rapidly shifting federal funding landscape. Pitt partially resumed offers of admission late last month, but it remains unclear if all programs that were paused have restarted offers or whether programs will admit fewer students this year. Weeks after the admissions pause, Pitt also ordered a hiring freeze for all faculty and staff.
Jahanian’s letter made no mention of a hiring freeze, but did say the university was being “vigilant” about hiring decisions. As for admissions: Jahanian said CMU has no plans to pause offers.
“We are not pausing Ph.D. admissions and remain committed to supporting access and opportunity for all our talented students — graduate and undergraduate,” Jahanian said, adding that the school is planning to provide stipend and health care support for Ph.D. students itself for the next academic year should federal funding be disrupted.
CMU was one of six universities congress asked last week to hand over detailed information about their Chinese students, citing national security concerns. A letter sent to the universities alleged that the Chinese government was embedding researchers in top American institutions to gain access to sensitive technologies. The universities were asked to provide information about how international students participate in research as well as details about collaborations with China-based universities.
In Jahanian’s letter Wednesday, he said CMU is “carefully reviewing” the request and plans to respond to it “consistent with how we generally respond to requests from the federal government.”
“Supporting our international community — academically, personally and through advocacy — remains an important priority for our academic units and our university leadership,” Jahanian said.
The CMU president also “proudly” reaffirmed his commitment to the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which he said he believes “are in full compliance with the law.”
“At the same time, we are evaluating our broader DEI approach to ensure that no program or practice is unintentionally exclusionary,” he added.
Until now, CMU has largely kept quiet about shifting federal priorities, citing its ongoing lawsuit against the NIH. The university is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to block a Trump administration spending cut at the agency for grants that cover ancillary research expenses like support staff and lab maintenance. A federal judge has put the implementation of that policy on hold while multiple lawsuits around it are heard. But if the cuts were to take effect, CMU could lose more than $8 million by some estimates.
Trump administration officials say the new funding cap could save the federal government $4 billion annually, but medical research universities have argued it could grind U.S. scientific innovation to a halt.
Support from the federal government has been critical to CMU’s research capacity “for more than 75 years,” Jahanian wrote. He pointed to the economic impact of the university’s research and contended that for every federal dollar invested in 2024, the university contributed around 40 cents from internal and philanthropic resources.
“A significant reduction in federal support for research would… slow scientific progress,” he wrote. And, he said, it could come at a time “when our societal well-being and global competitiveness depend on it more than ever.”
Jahanian pledged to work in “good faith” with other universities as well as elected officials at the state and federal level to advocate for sustainability. He also urged his academic community to do more to increase public confidence and trust in research institutions like CMU.
“The real or perceived erosion of this trust is deeply concerning and, if left unaddressed, poses a serious threat to the foundations of discovery and progress,” he said. “There is a great deal at stake in terms of how we move forward.”