Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz wants state universities to come up with 10% budget cuts ahead of the upcoming legislative session.
Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz wants more efficiency out of higher education and to redirect cuts to bolster “workforce alignment” of schools.
Schultz, R-Hooper, said he is concerned about increasing administrative costs and is focused on making sure the schools are operating efficiently in the face of the skyrocketing price of a college degree. “We work really hard as a state to hold our state agencies accountable and to make them run efficiently, but nobody’s ever looked at higher ed,” Schultz said. “I think becoming more efficient is one of the main goals in this, which then will provide better opportunities for our … students.”earlier this month, college enrollment nationally is expected to start to decline beginning next year.
In the legislative session this spring, lawmakers cut 1.5% of higher education funding from the budget. That amounted to about $20 million. That cut will lower the base rate higher education is funded each year moving forward — unless the Legislature restores the percentage or cuts deeper. There is also a push by Schultz and others to streamline the number of hours needed for some degrees, with a goal of getting students through college in three years, if possible, making it less costly and meaning students would incur less debt.
Schools don’t want to limit funding for athletics programs because it puts them at a competitive disadvantage, she said. “If money is good for sports, shouldn’t money be good for academics?”But Schultz said this focus on reforming higher ed doesn’t stem from those issues. “This is completely separate,” he said.
It’s something, she said, university leaders “need to be prepared for.” She doesn’t expect any cut would be uniformly applied to all departments, like what Peterson said, but she wants to be able to make “fully informed choices” on what areas need funding and which could be trimmed.
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