Dear Pitt students, faculty and staff,
I’m writing to share that the University’s Board of Trustees approved operating and capital budgets for Fiscal Year 2025 earlier today. A message from Interim Chief Financial Officer Thurman Wingrove will be sent shortly and will provide additional information and details.
In the meantime, this balanced budget reflects the University’s priorities as defined by our strategic plan, the Plan for Pitt 2028, including core commitments to our people and to providing a high-quality, world-class education to our students. I want to extend my sincere appreciation to the Board of Trustees for approving the budget, as well as to the members of our university community who used care and collaboration in helping to shape and deliver this important outcome. We are thankful for the General Assembly’s support and look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnership with the legislature and the governor’s administration.
With this budget in place, we can continue to build on our momentum. As I reflect on my first year as your chancellor, I want to express what an honor it has been to be part of this community of scholars, leaders and doers. As quickly as this year went by, we accomplished so many important things together.
We welcomed the most diverse, talented and global class in Pitt’s history last fall. If applications for admission are any indication, demand for a Pitt degree has never been higher: We’ve received a record number of applications for fall 2024 on our Pittsburgh campus. We signed on to the College Cost Transparency Initiative to help provide prospective students and their families with easy-to-understand information to navigate financial aid offers. We announced the launch of the Pitt Finish Line Grant, which will provide just-in-time financial support for undergraduates who are one to two semesters from graduation — a key moment of financial risk.
We were one of the founding members of College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, which has grown to represent over 70 colleges and universities. Through the ongoing Year of Discourse and Dialogue, we continue to lean into difficult conversations and learn about complex issues that are a priority for our university community.
We marked a monumental gift — $25 million from the Orland Bethel Family Foundation — to elevate musculoskeletal medicine. We saw our community engagement work be recognized by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities with the C. Peter Magrath Community Engagement Scholarship Award. We celebrated as members of our community earned accolades, including seven national academy electees, 10 Fulbrighters and two Pulitzer Prize recipients. We launched a Doctor of Chiropractic program, the first of its kind at a research-intensive public university in the U.S. and the only such program in Pennsylvania. The David C. Frederick Honors College expanded to serve students at our campus in Greensburg.
To amplify our impact and innovation, we welcomed several new and familiar faces into leadership roles. In a shared commitment to our people, we established a historic labor deal with our faculty union and earned recognition as an employer of choice by Forbes. And we honored over 7,400 Pitt students, many of whom didn’t experience a traditional high school graduation ceremony because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they earned their degrees.
This same commitment to each other also propelled us to report records for graduation rates, postgraduation placement (98%), research expenditures ($1.16B) and number of Pitt Day of Giving donors (11,473), not to mention our top six ranking for National Institutes of Health funding and top 20 ranking for U.S. universities granted utility patents.
Of course, this is only a sample of what our community achieved this year.
As next year approaches, know that we are ready. We’re excited to lean into our distinctive strengths. And we know that It’s Possible at Pitt.
With appreciation,
Joan Gabel