Catholic University cuts 7 percent of workforce amid $30 million deficit

The Catholic University of America in Washington has cut 7 percent of its workforce, as part of a financial restructuring to tackle a $30 million deficit amid declining enrollment revenue and rising overall costs.

In a May 19 message, Catholic University president Peter Kilpatrick announced “with a heavy heart” that 66 active, full-time positions have been eliminated amid the final phase of a “comprehensive financial resiliency plan” first unveiled in last fall.

The cuts, which will save the university some $9.7 million annually, “were necessary to achieve a balanced budget for the current fiscal year,” he said.

Kilpatrick said the positions spanned “various departments,” primarily in “administrative and operational areas that are less directly connected to the student experience.”

Karna Lozoya, vice president for university communications, declined to specify to OSV News which departments were impacted, but confirmed the terminated positions were all administrative.

Lozoya also echoed Kilpatrick’s message, saying in a May 21 email to OSV News, “Unfortunately, it was not possible to reduce our operational budget by 10 percent without also eliminating staff positions.”

“We made deliberate decisions to minimize impact on student-facing roles, focusing instead on streamlining administrative functions, reducing duplication of services, and adjusting staffing in areas where technology solutions could improve efficiency,” said Kilpatrick.

He said the restructuring was “designed to be comprehensive,” adding, “We do not anticipate further position eliminations as part of this process.”

The affected staff, who were notified May 19, will remain on paid leave through June 13 with full benefits, and will receive “comprehensive transition support,” said Kilpatrick.

He noted their final June paycheck will include two weeks of additional pay, plus a “voluntary severance amount made possible by donor support.”

“This package reflects both our institutional commitment and the generosity of our broader University community who stepped forward to help care for those affected during this transition,” Kilpatrick said in his message.

Six months of outplacement assistance will also be provided, and released staff can apply for open positions at the university, for which they “will be given full consideration,” he said.

Staff with additional roles, such as summer lecturers, can continue in those positions, said Kilpatrick.

The move is one of “multiple strategic components” in slashing approximately 10 percent of the university’s operating budget, he said.

Other strategies include trimming operational budgets across both administrative and academic units, with the planned salary increase pool scaled back from 4 percent to 2.5 percent, and the maximum retirement contribution shaved from 10 percent to 7.5 percent.

Qualified faculty will be offered “voluntary separation packages,” said Kilpatrick.

The tuition-dependent university will also roll out new degrees to entice applicants.

The expanded offerings include a Bachelor and Master of Science in artificial intelligence, an accelerated Bachelor of Science in nursing, a master’s degree in business administration and a new online master’s degree in data analytics.

Kilpatrick said the school will also begin conferring a master’s degree in evangelization and culture, in partnership with the Word on Fire Institute, part of the media apostolate led by Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.

In a Dec. 6 email to alumni, Kilpatrick had pointed to a number of challenges in the nation’s higher education landscape, citing “rising costs and increased competition for students.”

He also noted the impact of COVID, inflation and the “poorly redesigned” FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form.

An overhauled version of the form — required for students applying for federally funded student aid — was rolled out by the U.S. Department of Education in December 2023 amid at least 55 technical problems, including simple bugs such as signatures disappearing from the online document.

The university is facing financial difficulties amid a challenging time for academia as a whole.

At least 16 U.S. nonprofit colleges and universities — many of them dependent on tuition, rather than endowments — shuttered in 2024. In 2023, at least 14 schools closed, with researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia projecting the trend to accelerate in the next five years.

In December, Federal Reserve scholars released a report on “Predicting College Closures
and Financial Distress,” observing that long-term trends and the post-pandemic recovery have created “serious financial headwinds” for the nation’s postsecondary education sector.

Enrollment fell 15 percent from 2010 to 2021, and although the fall 2023 semester saw “saw the first across-the-board increase in enrollment in many years,” downturns in the overall number of graduating U.S. high school seniors — higher education’s anticipated “demographic cliff” — accounts for a “sizeable portion” of the waning enrollment trends, said the researchers.

In addition, said the Federal Reserve report, fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college upon graduation, with the rate sliding from 70 percent to 62 percent over the past decade.

“This decline, which also began before the pandemic, could reflect growing skepticism among the public about the value of higher education,” said the researchers.

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