What’s New
Utah’s higher-education system is facing a $60-million cut, but it might come with an asterisk: Colleges can earn a share of the money back if they spend it in areas identified by the legislature.
The bill carrying the cut, HB 1, awaits the signature of Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican. It specifies that roughly $60 million of the annual higher-education budget be shifted toward “strategic reinvestment.” An accompanying bill that has not yet passed, HB 265, lays out how colleges can appeal for their share of money back by allocating it to high-demand, high-wage majors.
The Details
An audit requested by lawmakers last year suggested that, among other things, colleges cut “inefficient” programs that graduate few students or do little to bolster the state’s work force. It also called on the legislature to consider performance-based funding for the university system.
The enrollment picture in Utah is comparatively rosy: Each of the state’s public colleges saw increases last fall. But the auditors anticipated a sharp decline in students starting in 2028.
“Clearly resources are not being allocated to where the growth needs are, and, in some cases, are being allocated to where we’re not being that efficient,” said Republican State Rep. Mike Schultz, the house speaker, when the audit was released.
Lawmakers seem to have embraced that sentiment. The state’s House of Representatives voted unanimously to pass HB 1, and only one senator opposed it.
The amount each college will immediately lose varies. The University of Utah, the state’s flagship, will lose the largest share: $19.6 million. Utah State will be down $12.6 million, and Weber State will lose $6.7 million. Colleges will have three years to adjust their budgets, and students in eliminated programs will be able to finish their degrees, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Under HB 265, each campus would need to prepare a report specifying how they plan to shift money from “operational inefficiencies” to “operational efficiencies,” using metrics like enrollment data, completion rate, wage outcomes, and work-force demand. If the Utah State Board of Education approves an institution’s plan, the college can win back access to their share of the $60 million over three years.
At a committee hearing for HB 265 Friday, Geoffrey Landward, Utah’s higher-education commissioner, said the system has to “ensure that every single dollar that is invested into higher education, whether that’s from the legislature or the students who are paying tuition, provides significant value to the students and to the state.”
In preparation for the impending cuts, leaders at the University of Utah asked deans and department chairs to conceptualize what a budget reduction of 10% or more might look like. The flagship also paid the consulting firm McKinsey & Company $6 million to give advice on how to save more, reports The Salt Lake Tribune.
The Stakes
The sole lawmaker who opposed HB 1, Democratic Sen. Kathleen Riebe, argued that the budget cuts will threaten liberal-arts programs, which she says strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills even if they don’t always result in high-paying jobs.
Vincent Pecora, a professor of English and chair of the linguistics department at the University of Utah, hopes that critical yet underpaid jobs like teaching aren’t overlooked when programs are evaluated by salary outcomes. He’s also worried that niche programs with low enrollment could be sacrificed in the pursuit of efficiency.
“The university is named that because it covers a universe of fields, even the ones that are very small,” he said. “We have to preserve those small ones, and I think we’re on track to do that.”
How these budget cuts are carried out will determine whether they debilitate a college, Pecora said. “I’m putting my faith in the fact that if we do need to produce efficiencies by cutting things, we try to do it in such a way that we combine the substance of some departments within an administrative structure that can absorb the shock and the cuts.”
He doesn’t want the University of Utah to end up like West Virginia University, which fired faculty members and eliminated entire departments as a part of budget cuts, or Boston University, which suspended admissions to a dozen doctoral programs in the humanities.
Republican Rep. Karen Peterson, the sponsor of HB 265, has said the bill is not an attack on the liberal arts. At a committee hearing Friday, she noted that the bill does not remove the requirement for a student to take general-education courses to obtain a bachelor’s degree. Higher education must craft well-rounded citizens in addition to preparing students for the work force, she said. “And this bill in no way diminishes any of that.”
Still, the same aura of anxiety that has plagued other budget-strapped campuses has swept into Utah. “Everybody’s a little bit scared,” Pecora said. Like other faculty who teach the humanities, he said the value of such studies is “incalculable.” Budget cuts like these put that sentiment to the test, and college leaders in Utah will have to make tough choices about what they can afford to preserve.
What to Watch For
HB 265 passed the House Education Committee on January 31 and will head to the House floor for a vote.
Peterson said in the committee hearing that colleges will submit their reallocation plans to the board in July, and the legislature will review them as a part of higher-education appropriations in August.
