Johns Hopkins University said it would eliminate more than 2,000 jobs after President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded federal funding for thousands of international aid projects, including a program designed to help prevent HIV transmission in India and a clinical trial for diarrheal disease in Bangladesh.
The university, one of the country’s most significant and prestigious scientific research institutions, said in a statement Thursday that it would eliminate 1,975 jobs internationally and 247 in the United States as the result of cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. An additional 78 U.S.-based and 29 international employees will be furloughed.
“This is a difficult day for our entire community,” the statement said. “The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally.”
Researchers leading some of the programs to be shuttered said the cuts could raise the risk of dangerous outbreaks. The changes will also have an economic impact in Baltimore because the university is the largest private employer in Maryland.
About half of Johns Hopkins’ funding last year came from federal research dollars, according to a letter from Ron Daniels, the university’s president.
It’s one of several universities across the country laying off workers or implementing hiring freezes as they reckon with sweeping cuts f to research and higher education from the Trump administration. Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Notre Dame University have abruptly stopped hiring faculty.
Additionally, the Trump administration canceled about $400 million in grants to Columbia University last week, citing alleged harassment of Jewish students, as well as $30 million in funding to the University of Maine, after the state’s governor clashed with Trump over transgender athletes in sports.
More than 50 universities are under investigation as the administration seeks to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The White House defended the actions.
“President Trump is streamlining federal agencies to eliminate wasteful DEI projects and make more funds available for scientific research, not less," White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said. "He will support policies that bolster our public health, cut programs that do not align with the agenda that the American people gave him a mandate in November to implement, and keep programs that put America First.”
Johns Hopkins researchers said they fear the cuts to USAID will have grave consequences for the communities where they had been working.
Dr. Sunil Solomon, an epidemiologist who helped lead an HIV detection and prevention research program in India called Accelerate, said the program provided HIV testing for nearly 120,000 people and diagnosed nearly 20,000 cases since it began in April 2019. The program was also helping to deliver medicine to and improve treatment for about 8,000 children with HIV.
The program was slated to receive about $50 million in total USAID funding through the end of 2026, Solomon said, and had used a little more than $36 million so far.
Solomon said there would be more transmission of HIV in India, more children with HIV who won’t receive timely care and fewer people diagnosed as a result of his program’s closure.
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“There definitely is gonna be a lot of lives lost from this program from the whole global pause and the termination of USAID awards,” Solomon said. “You’re not going to see it happen tomorrow or the day after, but these impacts are going to be seen maybe six months down the line when kids have stopped taking their medication, their immune system starts deteriorating, they start picking up new infections.”
Solomon said cutting Accelerate would force the layoffs of nearly 600 people, including four Johns Hopkins staffers in the U.S. and 14 in India, along with hundreds of subcontractors in India.
Dr. Judd Walson, an infectious disease physician and the chair of the department of international health at Johns Hopkins, said other programs had been similarly shuttered or reduced.
These include a tuberculosis research program and a clinical trial in Bangladesh designed to reduce outbreaks of cholera and other diarrheal diseases, he said.
“People were enrolled in that study. We had to pause all activities despite that ongoing work,” Walson said.
He added that the cuts could put U.S. residents at more risk for infectious diseases.
“In many ways, USAID funding has provided a mechanism for us to have eyes on the ground of what’s happening around the world in relationship to disease,” Walson said. “We’re one plane ride away from the spread of very significant diseases into our country, and this decision to terminate all these programs will have important consequences for global health security.”
In Baltimore, meanwhile, economic effects could ripple. Johns Hopkins paid out about $5 billion in wages in Maryland in the 2022 fiscal year and directly employed nearly 56,500 people in the state, according to university estimates. Johns Hopkins said it was responsible for more than $15 billion in economic impacts in Maryland during that time.
Other pending Trump administration cuts could threaten Johns Hopkins further. The administration last month attempted to limit National Institutes of Health payments to universities for research grants by capping indirect costs, which cover things like utilities and building operations, to 15%.
The policy was challenged in court, including in one case where the university is a plaintiff. Earlier this month, a judge put the administration’s plan on hold.
In a legal filing, Johns Hopkins said it received more than $1 billion in grant funding from NIH in the 2024 fiscal year. Reducing payments for indirect costs could leave the university on the hook for an estimated $200 million, the filing said.
