Harvard Medical School leadership told employees at a town hall Wednesday morning that the school was preparing to make staffing reductions and cut programs as a result of the Trump administration’s actions against Harvard — including a $2.2 billion freeze.
“I know this news is sobering. I know that many of you have been expecting this news, and so to actually be clear and transparent about it, it’s difficult for all of us,” said HMS Executive Dean for Administration Lisa M. Muto, according to a recording of the town hall obtained by The Crimson.
Joncas said that HMS only had about $39 million in reserves and had already been struggling with financial challenges, historically counting on philanthropic gifts to make up the difference.
I have no sympathy for Harvard Medical School in this situation. Notwithstanding that HMS has a “$5 billion endowment from about 1,400 school-specific gifts, Harvard Medical School will run a deficit this year” according to one of the linked articles in The Crimson. I read just yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that Harvard (presumably the College, and not the HMS) and other schools such as Yale, Princeton, and Northwestern were issuing bonds as a means to raise funds for their schools and serve as a buffer against those monies being withheld by the Trump Administration; perhaps HMS could do the same, as well as showing a bit more financial prudence.
Agreed. The University purposely chose to play politics and the donors fled.
"While strong philanthropy historically supported the school’s initiatives, after fiscal year 2022, Joncas said, “a lot of that changed” when donors fled after Harvard’s handling of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Donations to Harvard’s endowment dropped by more than $150 million in fiscal year 2024 after several major billionaire donors publicly cut ties with Harvard over its handling of campus antisemitism."
I also lose sympathy when realizing Harvard with its 50billion plus endowment is only taxed in the 1% range on said endowment. The interest alone on this endowment can fund much of the vital research if the institution truly values it. How many of us are paying federal taxes in the 1%range!?! Also, no property taxes? State taxes?
There are a lot of entities which pay no federal tax (Trump even brags about it). At least from Harvard you get a shot at a cure for Parkinson’s, its variety of hospitals which treat the indigent, museums and archives and libraries, etc. Make a list of wealthy people and organizations which pay zero or trivial taxes-- and you’ll be hard pressed to figure out what “public good” they are serving besides sheltering their money so the next few generations of rich people (generally lazier and stupider than the person who made the money in the first place) can live off the proceeds.
Tell me what disease Harvard has cured recently? As someone who has worked in the medical field for the last 30plus years, I’m scratching my head to think of things that have been truly cured. Hasn’t anyone noticed the current push in medicine is not for “cures”, rather lifetime treatments. That is very different than a cure (and also much more profitable).
Harvard University and Harvard Medical School should understand that money is not free. Why not negotiate ?
Harvard University accepts donations with stipulations each and every year so why fight the largest, by far, donor ? Negotiate. Compromise. (Especially since some, or all, restrictions could be lifted in under 4 years under a new administration.)
P.S. Harvard University’s stance causes me to think of the Titanic.
Federal grants for research aren’t donations. They fund actual research projects and are awarded in a competitive process based on scientific merit as determined by subject matter experts. There are legal processes governing cancellation or modification of these grants.
Yes, I do understand, but the current administration thinks otherwise.
Pick your battles wisely. In my view, the risk is too great to fight over a less than 4 year compromise.
There is already a sizable movement to tax college & university endowments / remove tax exempt status of institutions of higher learning. Why poke an angry, powerful bear who “controls” the House, the Senate,and the US Supreme Court ?
Quite often, common sense is more valuable than being right.
Parent had several years of higher functioning with early onset Alzheimer’s while enrolled in a Harvard sponsored clinical trial. We learned after the fact that he had not gotten a placebo. The inconvenience of the trial (needed a family member to accompany the patient) was more than compensated for by the extended years of only moderate dementia. I haven’t followed the drug-- I don’t know what the state of treatment is right now. But as someone with TWO parents who died of Alzheimer’s, extended moderate (vs. being plunged quickly into being immobile, unable to eat without assistance, total loss of language) is a god send.
Is your irritation with all medical research or just with Harvard’s? "cause there are an awful lot of promising stuff that causes a brouhaha coming out of lots of universities which turns into a big old nothing. If only we had a crystal ball and could only fund the stuff that would turn into successes, right?
I don’t think ‘cure’ should be the hurdle. So, I’ll start with Harvard CRISPR research which was instrumental in bringing Casgevy for sickle cell disease to market. Not technically a cure, but it represents a dramatic improvement in patients, and may ultimately be a cure in some patients (studies ongoing and curing disease takes a long time and may not be possible in certain disease states.) Here’s a good place for you to start:
Common sense says you don’t negotiate with autocrats. History bears this out.
In this instance, you don’t negotiate over funds to which you are legally entitled and that are being capriciously and illegally withheld.
Universities need to maintain a united front and be prepared for a long-term slog. I deeply respect Harvard for using its unique position to lead the way, even in the face of significant near-term pain.
I completely agree with this. Research that leads to treatments that extend life expectancy and dramatically improve quality of life is just as important as a ‘cure’. With the cutbacks in federal funding, maybe venture philanthropy will become more widespread. Here is the best example of the model: CFF Venture Philanthropy Model
I totally concur with others that cures are not the only important thing. But, I will also point to David Liu’s work - from the Department of Chemistry at Harvard - just awarded the Breakthrough prize. This arguably has already led to cures and will lead to more.
No actually I haven’t noticed that. Much of the current cutting edge research involves the genetic modification of cells, which often involves curing diseases at the most fundamental level. It has cured people and will almost certainly cure more in the future. It involves a set of incredibly complex but powerful tools that have yielded amazing results and can generate even more in the future. Universities like Harvard (and many others) have been instrumental in understanding and developing the science and techniques behind these.
This stuff is very, very expensive, however, because it doesn’t involve taking a pill or getting a simple injection. In some cases doctors need to remove a patient’s cells, take them to a lab, modify them, and put them back in. This is very individualized work — no economies of scale. Hopefully continued research and implementation will reduce costs and improve efficacy over time.
Many of the diseases that can be cured by inexpensive treatments have been. Diseases like cancer are a whole other level, and continued progress will be inconsistent, expensive, and difficult — but absolutely worth it.
I work in the medical field, have done medical research, I understand what you are saying. There has been 30 plus years of this research. So, tell me, which diseases have been cured recently? I’m not saying that having treatments is bad, or that there are not people who are helped, but the reality is there is no financial incentive to truly cure anything. Everything is lifetime of treatment. It was the original post that I responded to that stated that HMS would (as their example) possibly cure Parkinson’s. I am just pointing out that medical research today is by and large NOT focusing on cures, only lifelong treatments.
I am not giving that the ‘focus’ is on only developing lifelong treatments. But opting to develop a treatment is necessarily what’s pragmatic in many situations. The reality is developing a cure for any disease is faced with many hurdles: base understanding of the disease process (for example, how can one cure Lupus when we have very little idea of the processes that lead to the disease), regulatory requirements, study design/endpoints/patient inclusion criteria, safety, time, and money. Big money because the disease basic research takes a long time, identifying appropriate drug candidates is difficult, and drug and technology (like CRISPR) research also takes a long time and is fraught with risk (scientific, financial, execution/operational.)
That is one heck of a sweeping claim. Do you have anything to back this up? Has there been any metanalysis of medical research over the past 10 years that supports the claim?
I mean, there is a very large amount of research being done that is applicable to gene therapy and to developing novel ways of delivering medication more efficiently. There is a lot of research on Neurobiology that is directly applicable to treatment and curing of brain injuries and mental disease.
Of course, there are tens of millions of people who are suffering from conditions that we have no idea how to cure, but they can have more or less normal lives if their condition is treated.
Are you or anybody in your family taking medication for hypertension, depression, diabetes, allergies, high cholesterol, etc?
Are you saying that the medical research that helps develop their treatment is trivial?
Typically an endowment is restricted to be used only for a specific purpose. Additionally, the organization cannot touch the principal and can only draw from the income or interest on the endowment.
Harvard and MIT may not pay taxes on all of their property, but they do provide direct payments to local municipalities in many, many other ways.
Please look at community.harvard.edu or
ogr.mit.edu/MITinCambridge/CommunityEngagement
MIT is Cambridge’s #1 Payer having contributed 118 Million Dollars in FY 2024. Harvard paid about 22 Million (I cannot find an amount to Boston for 2024, but the last ten years Harvard has paid 69 Million to Boston). Add to that the clinics, educational partnerships with local schools, employees residing in Cambridge or Boston, etc. These universities are huge drivers of the local economies which further contributes to municipal revenue.
I can appreciate (especially looking at MIT) that Harvard should pay more, and it looks like a recent agreement with Cambridge has recently upped the PILOT Payments to 6 million annually. I just really think industry and the Boston Medical community (a destination sought by people from all over the world) relies heavily on these universities.