UH Scrambles To Address ‘High-Risk’ Financial Situation Amid Trump Cuts

The University of Hawaiʻi has suspended merit pay increases, curtailed nonessential travel and imposed greater scrutiny of grant-funded hires to maintain financial stability amid major research cuts imposed by the White House.

Describing the atmosphere as a “high-risk situation,” UH President Wendy Hensel has issued a directive to leaders of UH system campuses to review their respective financial contingency plans “to ensure that service levels are maintained and each campus remains financially stable.”

The Trump Administration has cut $83.4 million in research funding from the university system, impacting more than 90 researchers sponsored by a spectrum of federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, university officials said.

Hensel announced the cuts last week in a message to students, faculty and staff of UH’s 10-campus system. The 80 grants cut, Hensel said, include 69 outright terminations.

“As expected, the number and scale of terminations is accelerating and will undoubtedly take a significant toll on the university,” Hensel said in the May 22 message.

UH Foresaw Cuts Under Trump

UH is a major driver of Hawaiʻi’s economy, employing faculty who attract funding to conduct research that in turn provides employment for other faculty and staff. In August, UH announced its faculty had landed $615.7 million in outside funding for fiscal year 2024, much of it from the federal government. 

But President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency overseen by car mogul Elon Musk has taken a scythe to university research funding across the United States. As the threat of cuts emerged early this year, Vassilis Syrmos, vice president for research and innovation for the system, said about half of the 1,600 or so grants were at high risk. They included ones in areas where UH excels, such as atmospheric and ocean sciences, and alternative energy.

A worst-case scenario, Syrmos said in February, could affect 1,200 UH workers and mean $8.2 million in lost monthly payroll. A less dire forecast would mean 200 to 300 job losses and $2.2 million to $2.3 million in monthly payroll.

On Wednesday Syrmos said his earlier predictions are starting to happen, and the worst may be yet to come.

“I think it’s going to accelerate,” he said.

Perhaps most perplexing, he said, are cuts to Department of Defense research, including to enhance energy resilience at military bases. The Hawaiʻi Natural Energy Institute housed at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology alone has lost $18 million in grant funding, he said. Some of that was for defense department projects.

“I don’t know why those caught DOGE’s attention,” Syrmos said. “We need to get some clarity on that.”

Another $3.5 million was cut to fund research on sea level rise conducted by SOEST, he said. That work also is essential for public safety and defense. A project to construct new dry docks at Pearl Harbor, for instance, depends on being able to anticipate sea level rise, which he said is not a political issue.

“Sea level rise is real,” he said. “I don’t know how else to say it.”

Also lost is money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Geological Survey, among other agencies, he said.

So far, Syrmos said, funding sponsored by the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has remained relatively intact, Syrmos said. But, he said, “We are on pins and needles on what’s going to happen to NOAA.”

The cuts are especially hard on faculty and staff who depend on the grants. The university is working to ensure graduate assistants can be paid for at least a month, Syrmos said. UH can dip into university general funds to make up for lost grant money for faculty to ensure compliance with collective bargaining agreements, he said. But that will leave financial holes in other places at UH’s sprawling system of university and community college campuses.

“It’s not like the general funds are just sitting around somewhere else,” he said.

Hensel Directive Seeks To Ensure Stability

UH has been bracing for the lost funding with measures to ensure the system’s financial stability. In an April 10 memo to campus chancellors, Hensel stressed the risks posed by the research funding cuts and called for several new policies to be implemented immediately. 

That included identifying funding sources and potential mitigation measures, particularly related to personnel expenses.

She also stressed the importance of “acting as a unified system to ensure collective equity for all campuses.”

New hires were to be “carefully scrutinized,” Hensel said. While permanent, general-funded positions of “strategic significance and need” could continue, positions funded through grants would need approval of a campus chancellor, provost or vice president.

Travel expenditures were to be “carefully evaluated and limited,” with review required by a campus chancellor, provost or vice president following several criteria designed to prioritize essential travel while managing money.

In her message last week, Hensel also announced a temporary suspension of faculty raises for “merit, equity and market” that had not been approved by May 23.

Christian Fern, executive director of the UH Professional Assembly, said the union has received calls from concerned faculty. 

Fern said a temporary suspension of merit raises was also put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic and faculty would be able to apply for raises again when the current suspension is lifted. He said how the university is to compensate union faculty if grant funding is taken away also is outlined in the union’s collective bargaining agreement with UH.

Syrmos said he’s particularly concerned about further cuts in 2026, although he hopes the U.S. Congress will recognize that research funding cuts affect all states, including red states that voted for Trump.

“I hope that Congress is the last line of defense,” he said, “and that wise minds prevail on both sides of the aisle.”