IBL News | New York
Harvard University’s President Alan M. Garber will take a voluntary 25% pay cut for the fiscal year 2026, which runs from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, on a salary not disclosed, but presumably upward of $1 million. Several other Harvard’s top officials are making voluntary cuts on their own.
Garber’s pay cut is a gesture to share the financial strain that has hit faculty and staff since the Trump administration froze nearly $3 billion in funding.
Over 80 faculty members — from several schools and academic units — have pledged to donate 10 percent of their salaries for up to a year to support the University if it continues to resist the Trump administration.
In 2020, as provost, Garber took a similar 25% cut in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, President Lawrence S. Bacow and several deans accepted temporary reductions as Harvard confronted a projected $750 million revenue shortfall.
Garber’s decision also mirrors similar moves from leaders of other schools. Brown University President Christina H. Paxson announced last month that she and two other senior administrators would take a 10 percent salary cut in fiscal year 2026.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced it would cut another $450 million in federal grants and contracts from Harvard. The Federal Government alleged Harvard had failed to check race-based discrimination and antisemitism. Earlier this month, it pledged to no longer award grants or contracts to the University.
The cut, which covers grants awarded by eight unspecified federal agencies, is in addition to the $2.2 billion funding cut announced last month.
Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, filed in April, remains in its early stages. Oral arguments are scheduled to begin on July 21, and the legal battle will be drawn out for months.
