Though UMass Chan will pull need-based institutional aid for the 2025-26 academic year, endowed scholarships will still be available, according to the email.
In a statement sent to the Globe, Media Relations Director Sarah Willey said the university is working individually with affected students to help them continue their education. Willey declined to say how much money UMass Chan gave to students in need-based institutional aid in the last academic year.
“UMass Chan is responding to significant and unexpected financial challenges tied to implemented and proposed federal policy changes,” Willey wrote. “UMass Chan is also actively advocating at both the state and national levels to preserve critical funding for education and biomedical research.”
In early March, President Trump slashed the U.S. Department of Education’s staff nearly in half, and a week later, signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the department completely. The federal agency, which opened in 1979 and can only be abolished by Congress, oversees federal funding for public schools and administers student loans and federal aid at universities.
The Trump administration has also moved to cap funding for indirect costs, or money the federal government pays to researchers for expenses like rent and utilities. Federal courts have blocked restrictions on indirect costs for grants given by the NIH and the U.S. Department of Energy, though the National Science Foundation announced May 2 that it would attempt to implement a similar policy.
Ellis Barrera, a first-year medical student at UMass Chan, said the canceled aid was unexpected and that some students felt blindsided.
“The overnight expectation that you’re going to be adding potentially, if this stays in place for the next three years, $100,000 to $200,000 of debt on top of an already massive amount is wild,” he said.
Barrera said affording medical school before the Trump administration was already difficult, but this decision is going to “have students in a worse off financial position than they already were.” As an in-state student, he said he said need-based financial aid paid for a “majority” of his tuition this academic year.
“UMass is a school that’s designed to serve residents in Massachusetts and prepare them for positions that will serve the people of Massachusetts,” he added. “It’s easy to see this affecting career decisions more than all the existing financial pressure points that had been in place for the past decade or so.”
In April, UMass Chan laid off or furloughed about 200 employees and paused hiring in light of a $30 million funding shortfall from the NIH. In total, the university is expected to lose $50 million if NIH funding cuts go through, the Globe previously reported. Last year, UMass Chan received $193 million from NIH.
“While UMass Chan is engaged in assertively challenging these sudden and potentially illegal shifts, lawsuits that have been filed in court are yet to be resolved,” Larkin wrote in the email.
Barrera said that while he doesn’t know the extent of UMass Chan’s situation behind the scenes, many of his classmates chose the university because of its financial aid offerings. He said he hopes there can be some kind of compromise.
“It’s difficult for me to overstate how much I appreciate and love the UMass community,” Barrera said. “It’s just tough to see what the school is going through.”
Emily Spatz can be reached at emily.spatz@globe.com. Follow her on X @emilymspatz.
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