Berklee College of Music is laying off 70 staff members as it strains under a budget crunch brought on in part by enrollment concerns, college officials said.
The Back Bay institution confirmed the layoffs, which make up 3 percent of the college’s workforce, in a Thursday statement. No faculty members were affected, the statement said.
“All programs and academic offerings are continuing as before,” the statement said.
Jim Lucchese, the college’s president, cited “rising costs, a dynamic enrollment environment, and shifting national policies” as reasons for the layoffs, according to a letter to faculty and staff last week obtained by the Globe.
“You all have already taken actions to serve our students under more constrained operating budgets and have done so exceptionally well,” Lucchese wrote in the letter, per the report. “While these actions represent meaningful progress, more is needed to ensure Berklee’s long term sustainability. This includes the difficult but unavoidable decision to decrease staffing levels.”
Affected employees will receive severance, subsidized health care continuation, and career transition support, Lucchese said in the letter.
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The layoffs, he added, are “by far the hardest step we’ve had to take.”
Berklee is one of many small colleges facing a tightening budget crunch due to enrollment and revenue trends.
The college is particularly vulnerable to any decline in international student enrollment, as the Trump administration cracks down on student visas and prospective international students look turn away from US schools. Experts have suggested that international enrollment nationwide could drop by up to 40 percent this fall.
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Last year, Berklee enrolled approximately 2,700 foreign students, 2,200 of them at its Boston campus, making up 32 percent of the school’s overall student body.
Experts say that international students at US colleges often pay “full freight” tuition — which, at Berklee, is $52,440 for the 2025–26 academic year. That means, in effect, international students often help pay for domestic students on scholarships and financial aid.
Dozens of Berklee students protested the layoffs on Monday outside the Boston Conservatory building at 8 Fenway, according to videos shared on social media by the Berklee Faculty Union.
Dennis Trainor, Jr., a professor at Berklee’s Boston Conservatory, wrote in a social media post Monday that it was “great to see students organize and come together so quickly” for the protest.
“Without a clear plan from Berklee, these layoffs will have a profoundly adverse effect on the quality of many programs and the day-to-day operation of the Conservatory and the college,” he added.
Lucchese, a former music industry executive who once managed artist engagement at Spotify, assumed Berklee’s presidency last year. His appointment came after his predecessor, Erica Muhl, left the school under murky circumstances; her four-year tenure saw high levels of administrative turnover, and some staff described her leadership style as toxic and abrasive.
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.