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Alaska’s University System Faces Its Fate

The U. of Alaska at Fairbanks. A veto by the governor, if sustained, would cut state support of Alaska’s multicampus university system by 41 percent, imperiling academic programs and 1,300 faculty and staff jobs.
The U. of Alaska at Fairbanks. A veto by the governor, if sustained, would cut state support of Alaska’s multicampus university system by 41 percent, imperiling academic programs and 1,300 faculty and staff jobs.

When Gov. Michael Dunleavy of Alaska vetoed 182 items in the state’s 2020 budget, one of the biggest targets was the University of Alaska, a multicampus system that stood to lose $130 million, or 41 percent of its state funding.

As university leaders, faculty members, students, and their supporters rallied against the cuts and urged state lawmakers to override the vetoes, the legislators split into opposing camps and met in separate cities.

Meanwhile, hoping for the best but planning for the worst, the university system’s leaders spoke of taking steps to make it easier to close programs and even campuses, lay off tenured and other faculty members, and pare their enrollments.

Now, with the Legislature failing to override the vetoes, the university system is struggling to deal with huge budget cuts.

Here’s how the crisis on the Last Frontier developed, in Chronicle articles.