Carnegie Mellon Fires 18 Computer Science Staff. US economy is collapsing!

The recent layoffs at Carnegie Mellon University’s vaunted School of Computer Science are more than just the latest round of belt-tightening—they’re a powerful indicator of the broader turbulence wracking both the job market and the U.S. economy at large. In early August 2025, CMU cut 18 staff members in its renowned computer science division, citing the need to “operate differently in a quickly evolving higher education landscape” and to use resources more efficiently—even as the university claimed to be in generally good financial health. The positions lost included both administrative and academic support roles across several departments.

What’s especially striking is that these layoffs hit in the heart of an institution typically insulated by prestige, a massive $3.2B endowment, and global demand for its programs. Yet even CMU, often buoyed by full-tuition international students, has faced multiple headwinds: fewer international enrollments due to tightened visa policies, uncertainty in federal research funding due to Trump administration budget cuts, and the ripple effects of trade tariffs and broader economic instability.

This cascading crisis is not unique to CMU. Other elite universities across Pennsylvania—like Temple, Pitt, and Drexel—have announced similar layoffs or freezes amid declining enrollments, escalating costs, and federal funding cuts. The domino effect is visually clear: as university research and STEM programs see funding dry up, fewer jobs are available, highly skilled workers are let go, and local economies suffer.

These CMU layoffs also reflect a larger trend—mass job losses nationwide, often misreported or underreported in official numbers. Recent months have seen a sharp increase in job layoffs across sectors, even as initial government “headline” employment figures remain suspiciously rosy until revised downward, sometimes dramatically, in subsequent months. Critics argue that this data manipulation is made possible by political upheaval within the Bureau of Labor Statistics, especially after Trump’s firing of the BLS secretary and restructuring of the agency, fueling concerns about the reliability of jobs data and the true state of the labor market.

Layer on top of this the tariff wars and chaotic policy reversals that have rocked markets: Trump’s trade and immigration measures directly impact both STEAM education and the tech sector pipeline. CMU’s troubled moment in Pittsburgh, right after hosting the former president for an AI and energy summit, sums up a larger American malaise—a system shedding talent as much due to political self-sabotage as economic necessity.

So, in short: the layoffs at one of the world’s top computer science institutions are a bellwether of wider economic cracks. They spotlight how, in an era defined by political interference, research funding withdrawals, and manipulated jobs data, even our most prestigious workplaces are casting aside staff in an effort to stay afloat. Instead of the “booming” economy trumpeted by official mouthpieces, the—and your—real America is bracing for turbulence, job losses… and the bill for shortsighted, self-inflicted wounds.