[freehorse]

I assume they, like most orgs, make a planning based on some available budget. If the budget gets higher, they will expand. If it gets lower, they will reduce their expenses/spread. I also assume that the reduction of overhead in particular is gonna hurt such institutions _a lot_ because they have exactly planned based on that.

I cannot speak about Cornell specifically, I do not know if they have a bloated administration or superfluous expenses. But the truth is that admin stuff are necessary for supporting education and research. Having been in universities during admin reforms reducing admin stuff (claiming that they make "smart restructuring") it always negatively affects work done in the university in one way or another. Usually, it means that research staff will have to pick up some of the admin work themselves, or be offered less support doing it. As research staff are usually paid more than admin stuff, that is not necessarily effective (unless it is assumed that research stuff will be working overtime anyway). In any case, it does not seem like an efficient move most of the times, even if it seems so to the bureaucrats who make these plans.