Dear Georgetown University Faculty and Staff,
Earlier today, I held two Town Halls to share updates on the university’s financial condition. I know that not everyone was able to attend.
Here are the key points I made:
- We continue to face considerable financial uncertainty for this year’s budget.
- Fiscal Year 2027 could be even more challenging than Fiscal Year 2026 due to:
- federal research award disruptions
- declines in graduate tuition revenue
- rising utility costs
- As of January 1, 2026, qualifying employees with a full-time equivalent salary of $50,000-$75,000 will be given a merit-based salary adjustment for the remainder of this fiscal year.
- We do not have sufficient funds to restore merit in this fiscal year for those earning more than $75,000.
- We will continue our campus-level review processes for mission-critical hiring and salary adjustments.
For more details, see below:
In April, we faced potential substantial net losses on our full institutional budget of about $2 billion. We chose a mitigation target of approximately $100 million to offset the estimated losses. We deliberately avoided mass layoffs that some of our peers conducted and we did not touch retirement contributions.
While we avoided the extreme losses in our financial forecast, we are still in a position to experience significant impacts and not all forecasting assumptions were borne out. Graduate enrollments were worse than we assumed, utility costs increased significantly, employee attrition rates were lower than expected, and other costs to operate the university were hit a little harder. I admit there is still a lot of uncertainty – and we continue to monitor all of these factors on a daily and weekly basis. While we continue our efforts to reduce expenses and generate additional revenue, it has been challenging to achieve our mitigation goal in such a short period of time.
Absent any additional mitigation measures, we would end the year with an unacceptably large budget gap. Unfortunately, this prevents us from restoring merit for most of our colleagues. Thanks to our community’s collective response, we do, however, have enough resources to restore merit for the remainder of this fiscal year for those earning a full-time equivalent salary of $50,000-$75,000. More information and answers to frequently asked questions can be found in Box.
I acknowledge that these budget constraints hurt. All of us are working harder than we have in the past. Without a strong community supporting all of us, our morale can suffer. I ask that we remember that Georgetown has an honorable and good mission: “Serious and sustained dialogue among people of different faiths, cultures, and ideas promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding.”
Looking forward, we will focus on revenue enhancements as well as cost efficiencies. The diversity of thought inherent in the Georgetown mission can be a strength for us at this moment. Hence, at the Town Halls I also announced a new program that will seek ideas for revenue enhancement and/or cost efficiencies from throughout the Georgetown community, to be submitted directly to the President’s Office. This is an attempt to use the talents of the entire community to help us navigate these times. Please watch for an email with more information on this initiative in January.
Finally, I am profoundly grateful for your resilience and dedication to Georgetown. It weighs heavily on us that, despite our desire to recognize and reward the commitment and contributions of our entire community, the current economic realities prevent us from doing so in the ways each member deserves. As we continue to make shared sacrifices, know that our collective efforts will help strengthen the institution for the future.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Groves
Interim President