PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Following the recommendations from a committee of faculty, staff, students and senior administrators, the Corporation of Brown University approved a Fiscal Year 2026 Brown operating budget that includes $1.87 billion in revenues and $1.9 billion in expenditures.
As the University continues a transition from a tuition-dependent financial model toward a more diversified set of academic offerings and accompanying revenue sources aligned with its research university peers, a projected $29 million deficit for FY26 marks a step forward from Brown’s budgeted $46 million deficit for FY25.
Revenue growth for FY26 is expected to outpace expense growth, reflecting a disciplined, sustainable approach to spending made possible by proactive financial planning and targeted actions focused on ensuring financial health. Importantly, the budget continues Brown’s focus on investing in its academic mission and the people across campus who fulfill that mission. Employee salaries, wages and benefits account for the largest share (43%) of expenses, with a budget of $818 million, and student financial aid comprises the second-largest share (26%), with $503 million in investments.
Brown’s highest governing body approved the budget during its May meetings in line with recommendations in the report of the University Resources Committee (URC). Brown Provost and URC Chair Francis J. Doyle III said that each year, the budget process upholds Brown’s tradition of shared governance — a factor particularly important in face of financial uncertainty fueled by actions at the federal level, including significant threats to research funding.
“As we work collectively across campus to navigate this challenging period, we remain unwavering in our mission: to educate exceptional students, to enable and support world-class research, and to build a campus community where every individual can thrive,” Doyle said. “Together, we will continue to shape a future defined by academic excellence, innovation and inclusion, even in the face of uncertainty.”
Budget planning amid financial uncertainty
The budget’s approval follows the October 2024 launch of Brown’s Financial Health Initiative, an effort to address a persistent gap between revenues and expenses that, if left unaddressed, will continue to widen. In recent months, ensuring the University’s financial health has become more urgent with Brown among the nation’s top research institutions confronting ongoing cuts in federal research funding, a possible increase in the tax on investment gains, and immigration policies that may hinder the ability to recruit international students.
In a cover letter outlining the URC’s recommended budget, Doyle noted that while wide-ranging financial scenario planning is underway at Brown to address potential major reductions in revenue, the FY26 Budget does not directly reflect large-scale federal impacts, since those remain highly uncertain.
“As we continue to monitor these external risks, it remains essential that we prepare in a proactive manner to withstand potential impacts by preserving financial flexibility,” Doyle said.
In March, Brown implemented cost-saving measures that included a staff hiring freeze, a halt on non-essential travel and slowdown of discretionary spending, as well as a salary freeze for members of the President’s Cabinet, a voluntary freeze for other highly compensated administrators, and a 10% salary reduction for Brown’s president, provost and executive vice president for finance and administration. These steps expanded on earlier actions, which included the cancellation of several faculty searches and the reduction of Ph.D. admissions targets across a number of Brown’s graduate programs.
Those actions reinforced guidance provided to University departments in October 2024 to keep budget requests flat for FY26 (with an allowance for salary pools), with units expected to absorb contractual and inflationary increases, as well as new spending requests, into existing resources. A subsequent “downside” request asked departments to absorb the estimated salary pools, and once the need to adapt further to the uncertain federal environment became clear, Brown’s financial leaders initiated an additional exercise in March 2025 to strengthen budget resilience. Departments were asked to deliver an additional downside scenario that further reduced expenditures.
Those exercises were not just about cost-cutting, Doyle noted — they were designed to encourage thoughtful, strategic prioritization across all areas to ensure the University can respond swiftly and effectively should additional federal disruptions materialize. The goals were to maintain flexibility, protect core academic functions and minimize long-term impacts to teaching, research and community support.
“With the input and support of the University community, we were able to close the budget with a $29 million total deficit,” Doyle stated in the URC letter. “While additional work remains to address the operating deficit in the years to come, especially amid the financial uncertainties noted above, this marks a significant step forward.”
Despite those actions, any long-term federal funding cuts of significant magnitude would imperil, or possibly end, areas of high-impact research at Brown, Doyle wrote: “This would be devastating to our research community, including the students at every level who benefit from a Brown education and the local and global communities that benefit from the results of our research,” he said.
Investing in people and priorities
Among the principles informing Brown’s decisions amid a challenging financial landscape are commitments to enroll talented students from all socioeconomic backgrounds; to support the world-class research of Brown faculty and scholars; and to support to the greatest extent possible the staff and operations that sustain the University’s community of teachers and learners. Each of those commitments is reflected in the FY26 budget.
The budget’s approval follows the February 2025 establishment of a 4.85% increase in total undergraduate tuition and fees for 2025-26. To sustain a commitment to meeting 100% of every undergraduate student’s demonstrated financial need, the University’s FY26 budget includes a 7% increase in financial aid for undergraduates, as well as a total student aid budget of $503 million to support undergraduate, master’s, Ph.D. and medical students. The continued expansion of Brown’s undergraduate financial aid budget will expand on recent increases in financial support for students.
“Strengthening our ability to welcome students from a wide diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds profoundly enriches our academic community at Brown,” Doyle said. “The rich variety of perspectives that results offers fresh insights in classroom discussions, challenges conventional thinking, inspires innovative research and helps to ensure that we’re preparing all students to thrive in a complex, interconnected world.”
The budget also provides $247 million in student aid and support for graduate students, continuing the University’s track record of new investments in aid for Ph.D., master’s and medical students, which range from fellowships and stipends to support for students who are parents.
As Brown pursues plans to reach ambitious yet achievable enrollment targets for its master’s programs, projected revenue growth reflected in the budget is driven largely by a strategic focus on expanding master’s education at the University. Since 2023, Brown has launched six new master’s degree programs in fields ranging from biostatistics to sustainable engineering to public humanities. The Corporation during its May meeting approved four additional new programs, including master’s degrees in management, organizational leadership and business analytics. New enrollments in master’s programs increased by 20% from the 2023-24 academic year to 2024-25, and applications and enrollments to date for 2025-26 remain strong. In the FY26 budget, revenue from master’s programs is projected to grow by 24%, and the budget includes support for multiple new faculty and staff positions critical to the University’s plans for growth in master’s programs.
Also reflected in the budget is a 3.5% salary pool for faculty and staff, which includes a 1% base component responsive to changes in the cost of living, a 1.75% “merit” component awarded based on performance, a 0.75% component for promotion, retention and equity adjustments, and a fund to make one-time market adjustments to the compensation of longer-serving, highly productive faculty whose compensation has fallen behind. The pool continues a commitment to paying current faculty and staff competitively, even as the University focuses on moderating headcount growth.
“Investing in the people who move our mission forward is not only part of our commitment to being a good employer, but also essential to sustaining our teaching and research, support for students and the many important impacts that Brown has in the world,” Doyle said.
Other investments include support for faculty research, undergraduate teaching, campus laboratories, sustainability initiatives, and strategic investments in the Brown University Health system (formerly Lifespan) and Brown Innovation and Research Collaborative for Health initiative.
In developing the budget, the URC recommended other measures to keep the operating deficit as low as possible. Those include maintaining the Brown endowment’s payout at the high rate of 5.5% for FY26.
The payout — the amount distributed from the endowment to support the designated purposes of the more than 3,800 unique endowed funds that support financial aid, faculty salaries, academic programs, research and much more — must be between 4.5% and 5.5% of the endowment value’s 12-quarter trailing average. At 5.5%, the endowment payout is the highest rate allowed per University policy and in alignment with the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, to which Brown’s and all endowments are legally subject.
"Funding from the endowment plays a vital role in supporting priorities across the University every day,” Doyle said. “For FY25, a $337 million contribution to our operating budget is supporting student scholarships, professorships, academic programs and student life initiatives. That will grow to an all-time high of $350 million in FY26 as the endowment provides critical funding for financial aid, groundbreaking research and Brown’s contributions to communities locally and globally.”
Brown’s Fiscal Year 2026 begins on July 1, 2025. The full URC report is available on the website of Brown’s Office of the Provost.
Brown's Fiscal Year 2026 Base Operating Budget
Consolidated Budget Revenue — Key Components
- Tuition and fees: $797 million
- Endowment: $350 million
- Sponsored research: $324 million
- Annual Fund and spendable gifts: $102 million
- Auxiliary and miscellaneous: $302 million
Consolidated Budget Expenditures — Key Components
- Faculty compensation: $326 million
- Staff compensation: $472 million
- Student compensation: $20 million
- Undergraduate student aid: $231 million
- Graduate student aid: $247 million
- Other student aid: $25 million
- General operating and subcontracts: $375 million
- Property, debt and capital: $137 million
- Internal services, transfers and other: $71 million
Budget by Division
The University’s consolidated budget comprises six main budget divisions, detailed here with total revenue budgets for FY26:
- Education & General and Auxiliary Enterprises: $1.3 billion
- Biology and Medicine: $249 million
- Public Health: $160 million
- Engineering: $57 million
- Pre-College Programs: $46 million
- Professional Studies: $19 million
Tuition and Fees
To enable students to anticipate the following year’s cost of attendance, the Brown Corporation approves tuition and fees in February each year. Undergraduate tuition and fees for 2025-26, as approved in February 2025, are:
- Tuition: $71,700
- Standard room rate: $10,410
- Standard board: $8,104
- Health services fee: $1,236
- Undergraduate student resources fee: $1,086
- Student activities fee: $428
- Student recreation fee: $100
TOTAL UNDERGRADUATE: $93,064
Graduate tuition for most doctoral and on-campus master’s degree programs will increase by 4.5% to $8,962 per course. Given a shift in 2018 to market-based pricing for some master’s degrees, approximately 20 University master’s programs have tuition rates that vary from the standard — for many, tuition for 2025-26 will increase by 4.5%, with cost for a number of programs remaining the same as for 2024-25.
Medical school tuition will increase by 2.75% to $73,150.