Research Halted at Two More University Retirement Centers After Social Security Funding Cuts   

Retirement research centers at the University of Michigan and Baruch College have halted research, administration officials at those schools confirmed to PLANSPONSOR.  

A University of Michigan official said the institution has not received any additional funding following the Social Security Administration’s February cuts to research that affected six universities. The cuts were made to comply with President Donald Trump’s orders to cut federal spending. 

A Baruch College official stated the New York Retirement and Disability Research Center, based at Baruch College in partnership with Hunter College and The New School, received a termination notice from the Social Security Administration on February 20, 2025, along with the other affected centers. As a result, the full center is no longer in operation as significant parts of its core functions such as training via fellowships and summer programming, new research projects and most previously funded research projects, have been terminated. 

The center at Baruch was managing 23 research projects at the time of the termination, the official stated. According to the same official, the college has continued some limited projects, “including analysis on projects where data collection had already been completed and on smaller-scale data collection supported by limited bridge funding. The center and its affiliated projects are also actively seeking additional funding to continue this work.” 

The center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison closed its doors earlier this month, as did the center operated by the National Bureau of Economic Research Retirement and Disability Research Center. 

A spokesperson for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County would not comment on status of its retirement research center. Nancy Miller, the center’s co-director, recently told PLANSPONSOR that the center, which collaborates with Brandeis University and the University of Baltimore, lost funding for at least 13 projects as a result of the SSA’s funding cuts.  

Though Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research was also affected by the cuts, which led to several projects being cancelled and forced the institution to cut educational training initiatives, the university’s research center has received additional funding and remains in operation. 

When the SSA announced the cuts in February, the agency termed the centers part of “fraudulent and wasteful” spending targeted by Trump.  

Though the cuts had a significant impact on the six universities, several other universities’ institutions studying retirement—those that do not receive SSA funding—remain in operation, such as the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Georgetown Center for Retirement Initiatives, which calls itself a 100% self-funded independent think tank. 

The Employee Benefit Research Institute also remains active. Bridget Bearden, a research and development strategist and member of EBRI’s leadership team, previously told PLANSPONSOR that the group is “monitoring the recent changes in research funding” and that “EBRI is open to research collaborations that align with our commitment to improving retirement security and financial well-being for workers and their families by expanding access to employer-sponsored benefits.”