The New School told employees it will reduce faculty and staff by about 15 percent by June 1 as part of a broad financial reorganization, citing a cumulative budget shortfall that grew to an estimated $48 million in 2025 and a plunge in enrollment from roughly 10,400 in 2019 to 8,800. Administrators said reductions will be targeted by program demand and operational needs, and that prior voluntary separation offers produced a 7 percent head‑count drop—well short of the university’s goal to align staffing with a roughly 20 percent enrollment decline. Provost Richard Kessler and EVP Francisco X. Pineda authored the employee notice; faculty leaders, including history professor Jeremy Varon, called the moves “agonizing” and warned of disrupted academic programs. The cuts follow earlier steps: frozen Ph.D. admissions, consolidation of colleges, salary pauses, and program eliminations. Higher-education leaders say this is a signal of the intensified fiscal pressure on tuition-dependent private institutions and the operational trade-offs universities face when enrollment and endowment returns fall.