McKinsey Must Cut Costs, Not Corners

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree — and, in Harvard’s case, it landed at McKinsey.

Over the past few months, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Task Force on Workforce Planning has tapped the consulting firm McKinsey & Company to develop a plan to redesign the FAS’s administrative structure. The firm’s task is to identify how best to tighten administrative sprawl to reduce costs and address budget deficit concerns.

For a Harvard diagnosed with administrative bloat, bringing in McKinsey to trim the administrative layer is a sensible first treatment. Still, Harvard must have the integrity to reject any possible measures that treat the academic mission as dispensable.

After all, an outsider’s perspective can only help. At a University whose governing board is known as the Corporation, and in practice often behaves like one, McKinsey’s expertise in corporate consulting seems like it could be of use in addressing Harvard’s unique financial challenges.

At present, the FAS faces an estimated structural deficit of $365 million, forcing some difficult budget decisions. The task force found that FAS had over 1,500 unique job titles and more than 60 systems for administration, human resources, and finance. In light of plans to keep spending flat in fiscal year 2026, Harvard has to find ways to deflate the ballooning number of offices and positions.

We are hopeful that McKinsey will successfully help the FAS reduce administrative costs. But it’s important to emphasize that even with the perspective consultants can bring, Harvard must remember it functions as an educational institution, not strictly a corporation.

Regardless of the experience McKinsey claims in higher education, their consultants may lack the specific institutional knowledge that is instrumental to understanding Harvard’s unique academic environment. Precedents and particularities cannot always be easily captured in spreadsheets and PowerPoints.

That principle should govern Harvard’s use of McKinsey in its ongoing crisis. We’ve asserted that administrators must face these budget cuts with as few cuts to teaching and research as possible.

Because while merely surviving this tumultuous time will require tactful administrative restructuring and thoughtful cost cuts, emerging from it stronger will require discipline around our institutional priorities.

Any confidence in McKinsey should be qualified by its mixed client record, from allegedly rigging data collection on Rikers Island in one case to offering unsavory actors problematic solutions in myriad more. At the very least, Harvard has the final say in which cost-cutting measures are adopted. It is Harvard’s job to filter McKinsey’s recommendations through a strict moral and mission-aligned filter.

If the firm can provide Harvard with informed, innovative solutions to reduce administrative costs, the investment may still be worth it. Nevertheless, the FAS must be willing to reject proposals that compromise the University’s pursuit of academic excellence.

As Harvard prunes its administrative branches, it must not cut its roots.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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