Brown University layoffs tied to Title VI investigation and years of administrative bloat
Brown University will lay off 48 employees and terminate 55 vacant positions in an effort to reduce spending.
The move comes as the school grapples with a Title VI investigation, a settlement with the Trump administration, and deepening financial deficits.
Brown University announced on Sept. 22 that it will lay off 48 employees and terminate 55 vacant positions in an effort to reduce spending. The move comes as the school grapples with a Title VI investigation, a settlement with the Trump administration, and deepening financial deficits.
The university framed its budget cuts as a response to “the persisting financial impact of federal actions,” according to an Aug. 5 statement to the Brown community. Despite the austerity measures, Brown confirmed that nearly all remaining faculty and staff would still be receiving an increase in compensation.
In December 2023, Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Zachary Marschall filed a Title VI complaint against Brown. Marschall cited multiple incidents of anti-Jewish harassment that the university allegedly failed to address.
In one case, a student wearing a Star of David necklace was shoved after a classmate grabbed at it, yet Brown declined to act, citing a lack of evidence. In another, a student was openly called a “Zionist Jew Pig” in class for wearing the same symbol of identity.
In July 2025, Brown reached a settlement with the Trump administration to regain access to federal funding. The agreement required the university to eliminate race-based considerations in admissions, ban men from competing in women’s sports, and contribute $50 million to state workforce development agencies.
At the same time, Brown signed a resolution agreement with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over a Title VI antisemitism complaint, while the Department of Health and Human Services later expanded its own investigation to cover the entire university and campus protests dating back to October 2023.
Brown President Christina Paxson defended the deal saying it reflects the university’s “academic independence” and maintains alignment with Brown’s core values.
The loss of federal funds had threatened to create a $30 million deficit at Brown, which was already running a $46 million deficit. The university, which charges students more than $93,000 annually—one of the highest in the nation—relies heavily on its endowment to cover shortfalls.
The layoffs point to longstanding debate over misuse of Brown’s administrative spending. Alex Shieh, a former Brown student, told Fox News that these layoffs prove “many of these administrators were unnecessary in the first place.”
Alex Shieh founded Bloat@Brown, an interactive database analyzing administrator roles for legality, redundancy, and job value. Examples included executive assistants, multiple staffers assigned to alumni magazine ads, and even a household assistant for the university president. He argued that legally questionable DEI programs and an expanding bureaucracy have driven tuition higher, diverting resources away from education itself.
Shieh sees Brown’s staff reductions as an essential win for students who are struggling to afford the increasingly ridiculous cost of attending elite Northeastern universities like Brown. For example, Yale University’s tuition rose from about $47,600 in 2015 to $67,250 in 2025, a 41.3 percent increase.
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Shieh’s examination of needless administrative spending has spread to other Ivy League campuses including the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, and Columbia University as distrust in higher education continues to grow.
“In recent years, Ivy League colleges have morphed into a bloated ‘educational industrial complex’ run by self-dealing administrators who charge families record tuition and divert the money to layers of staff that add little to the classroom,” Shieh said. “The result has been an Ivy League that masquerades as a meritocracy while in reality predominately serving the richest Americans who can afford the $93,064 costs and fees.”
Campus Reform has investigated elsewhere how highlighted how college often serves as a mere credentialing service, as Tennessee College Republicans President Noah Jenkins explained. rather than an engine of learning. Pair that with tuition inflation driven by administrative bloat, and the result is an unbalanced system.
Zachary Marschall has argued that the boards governing these institutions are stocked with wealthy, well-connected figures—Rockefeller Republican holdovers who preserve their own privileged place while stewarding a progressive elite consensus.
Brown’s layoffs and spiraling costs sit squarely within that framework, illustrating how higher education now functions less as a path to opportunity than as a fortress of status.
Campus Reform has reached out to Brown University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
