No plans for UNC to implement hiring freeze amid N.C. State University changes

As several universities across the country have announced pauses to hiring in response to potential National Institutes of Health funding cuts, Chancellor Lee Roberts said UNC is not considering implementing a hiring freeze of its own.

Under President Donald Trump's administration, the NIH has proposed a plan to cap reimbursements for indirect research costs at 15 percent. The proposed cuts were blocked by a federal judge and are currently suspended due to an ongoing legal challenge. 

UNC Chair of the Faculty Beth Moracco said the potential change has left colleges and universities waiting for more information.

“The level of uncertainty and how rapidly these changes are coming with a lack of clarity and a lack of specificity makes it really feel unprecedented and very unsettling,” Moracco said.

Some higher education institutions across the country are responding to the potential loss of federal funding by shrinking graduate student appointments and implementing hiring freezes. 

On Feb. 14, North Carolina State University paused all hiring activities in its colleges, senior vice provost and vice provost units, including faculty and staff, according to a memo written by N.C. State Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Warwick Arden. 

The NCSU memo cited the reasons behind the freeze as the potential impacts of Trump’s executive orders and guidance, the potential federal government shutdown on March 14 and state-level financial challenges.

“Leadership is becoming increasingly concerned with our budgets over the next year or two,” Arden wrote in the memo.

Arden wrote that he will consider exceptions to the freeze on a case-by-case basis, saying the pause does not apply to student workers such as graduate student appointments or part-time and temporary employees.

At the time of publication, no one from NCSU administration was available for an interview regarding the freeze.

At a Faculty Council meeting on Friday, Roberts said UNC is not expecting to implement a hiring freeze.

UNC System Media Relations wrote in a statement to The Daily Tar Heel that the decision to implement a hiring freeze is generally made at the campus level with the authority of each institution’s chancellor.

UNC System President Peter Hans could implement a system-wide hiring freeze, but likely would not, unless under extreme financial circumstances, UNC System Media Relations wrote.

Although no other UNC System schools have announced hiring freezes, UNC System Faculty Assembly Chair Wade Maki said that he has heard concerns regarding what the NCSU freeze could mean for other institutions. 

“The trends that impact one campus will impact many,” Maki said.

Maki said he thinks that NCSU and UNC-CH would be the most affected by the potential NIH cuts. Both institutions are R1 research universities that receive the most federal funding within the UNC System.

“There's a larger pool of funds at risk than other institutions,” Maki said.

Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology also announced hiring freezes in February. These institutions have the fourth and sixth highest endowments in the United States, respectively.

UNC’s largest federal funder is the NIH, which awarded the University more than $592 million in 2024, making it vulnerable to the potential cuts. However, Roberts said during the Faculty Council meeting that the University currently believes that the court will ultimately uphold the contracts of existing grant agreements with NIH.

UNC professor Mark Peifer, who works in a lab that currently receives NIH funding, said he would worry about the University’s ability to meet the needs of its growing student population if a hiring freeze was implemented. UNC plans to admit 500 more first-year students for the upcoming school year.

Peifer, who teaches in the Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he expects around 250 of the additional 500 incoming students to take classes in his department due to biology being UNC’s top major.

The department is currently hiring three new faculty members, which Peifer said will help meet the demands of a larger group of students. 

“I'm glad that Carolina is continuing to hire because we need people to maintain the educational part of our mission,” Peifer said.

Currently, all University hiring actions are reviewed very closely, Roberts said during the meeting. The more expensive a hire is, he said, the more review it gets.

Moracco said departments rely on the faculty, staff and students that they hire for research, teaching and service. A freeze would disrupt these University missions, she said.

However, Moracco said that with no plan for a University hiring freeze and with the NIH cap being on hold, faculty must continue work and wait for guidance.

“We're hoping that there will be some clarity soon so that we can make more contingency plans and think through what the implications are,” she said.

@alice__scottt

@dailytarheel | university@dailytarheel.com

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that Mark Peifer is a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology in the School of Medicine. Peifer teaches in the Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for this error.