On the earlier thread about whether those with job offers should accept quickly, Professor Sam Elgin at UC San Diego just posted the following: "My university – UC San Diego – has just announced a complete freeze on all faculty and staff hiring for the indefinite future. Our Executive Vice Chancellor cited financial uncertainty arising from potential federal funding cuts, which could account for a 10% budget shortfall for the campus."
This is extremely ominous.
UCSD is a major research center in the medical and life sciences, so is at grave risk if the cut in NIH funding stands. Admittedly, some colleges and universities will be less dependent on the NIH. Here is a list of the top 20 recipients of NIH funding compiled in early 2024:
Johns Hopkins University, $842,956,584
- University of California, San Francisco. $789,196,651
- University of Pennsylvania $703,217,343
- Duke University $701,940,461
- University of Michigan $698,264,076
- University of Pittsburgh $658,312,303
- Washington University, St. Louis $633,343,121
- Columbia University Health Sciences $633,309,114
- Stanford University $628,835,527
- Yale University $622,499,969
Rounding out the top 20 were:
- University of California, Los Angeles $580,267,623
- University of California, San Diego $572,451,525
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill $559,512,811
- University of Washington, Seattle $558,170,733
- Vanderbilt University $546,405,280
- Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine $501,120,829
- Emory University $485,429,870
- University of Wisconsin, Madison $446,888,313
- New York University $424,963,095
- Northwestern University $413,561,989
Of course, many other colleagues and universities receive substantial sums from NIH, which in the context of their own budgets may make a crucial difference to funding. So I expect UCSD will not be the last school to freeze faculty and staff hiring.
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