With less than two months until the University of Utah must finalize a plan to find a way to cut $19.5 million from its budget under HB265, the administration has provided few specifics about which programs will face reductions. Despite early discussions about potential strategies before the legislative session, the university has shared minimal details since January.
Under the bill’s “strategic reinvestment” mandate, the university must submit its cost-cutting plan to the Utah System of Higher Education by the end of June. While President Taylor Randall has offered some reassurance that the plan won’t immediately eliminate majors or specifically target arts and humanities programs, the administration has not publicly detailed which areas will bear the heaviest burden when changes take effect this fall.
Randall said whatever plan they develop won’t immediately eliminate majors, abruptly close resources on campus or target arts and humanities programs.
“I think it would be wrong to say we are looking at eliminating those things,” Randall said. “Those are areas that make us strong as a university and always will.”
Utah’s public colleges and universities have until the end of June to prepare their reinvestment plans for their first approval by the Utah System of Higher Education, known as USHE.
Before the legislative session began, the university administration worked directly with programs to evaluate potential internal reductions, considered changes to student support services funding and hosted a public forum at the Hinckley Institute to address questions from the community. Since January, however, the administration has provided fewer public details about its developing plans.
Why implement strategic reinvestment?
The origins of this budgetary challenge trace back to the legislative session’s opening budget bill, HB1, which established the base higher education budget and instituted the strategic reinvestment fund.
The Legislature’s Chief Finance Officer for Higher Education, Joseph Fitzgerald, said the fund holds 10% of each participating institution’s budget, adding up to $60 million statewide.
HB265 builds on this framework by giving each institution three years to implement a strategic reinvestment plan and reduce or eliminate spending equal to the amount reallocated into the reinvestment fund.
To guide these decisions, the bill outlines six criteria that institutions should use to build their reinvestment plans: enrollment, completion rate, professional outcomes, workforce demands, program costs and alignment with the institution’s mission. According to the legislation, if an institution develops its plan following those criteria and adequately reduces spending, it can earn back the reallocated money.
The bill’s Sponsor, Rep. Karen M. Peterson, R-Davis, framed the legislation as a path toward fiscal efficiency.
“We know that our colleges and universities combined contribute more than $11 billion to our economy every year, and we have a great system,” Peterson said. “But that doesn’t mean … it can’t meet the needs of our students and our taxpayers a little bit better.”
This push for efficiency comes amid substantial growth in higher education spending. According to Transparent Utah, the state’s higher education expenditures have increased nearly 169% over the past 20 years, reaching over $2 billion in 2024.
During floor discussion, Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake, whose district includes the U, said he hopes the focus of the bill would be on student affordability.
“I do hope [the] number one goal for these institutions is…driving down the cost of education,” Dailey-Provost said. “If we can really stay focused on that, we are moving in the right direction.”
Ultimately, Dailey-Provost voted in favor of the bill.
How is HB265 being interpreted?
During floor discussion, Rep. Sahara Hayes, D-Millcreek and Rep. Tiara Auxier, R-Morgan raised concerns about the integrity of humanities and arts programs. They worried these disciplines might be particularly vulnerable because much of the reinvestment criteria doesn’t align with those programs’ outcomes, like high-salary professional outcomes or direct workforce demands.
However, the legislation includes safeguards against a purely economic approach to program evaluation. The bill requires that all six criteria be considered when evaluating programs, creating a more nuanced framework for assessment.
For example, in Utah, the average starting salary for a teacher is around $55,000. According to the professional outcomes requirement in the bill, education programs should receive funding cuts because teachers have low salaries. Just because teachers tend to have a low income doesn’t mean those programs will lose funding, since their positions are in high demand.
During a Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee Meeting, Sen. John Johnson (R-Morgan, Summit and Weber) raised concerns about maintaining the distinct educational approaches between technical colleges and universities.
“I do believe students have to be prepared for the workforce,” Johnson said. “But one of the things I think we need to be concerned about is who’s going to teach the next generation.”
Randall, however, said programs like the humanities and arts help develop critical skills beyond the technical that benefit students across all majors.
“Broadly, that gets interpreted as writing skills, presentation skills, critical thinking skills,” Randall said, “and those align quite directly to general ed type curriculum and things that are often discovered in humanities-oriented classes.”
What programs are high-risk according to HB265’s language?
While the legislation gives institutions flexibility in how they implement cuts, USHE has developed guidance to help universities and colleges evaluate their programs..
HB265 clarifies that budget cuts or reallocations don’t have to be strictly on academic programs and can include athletics, administration or other services. As long as the plans abide by the six criteria and reduce spending by 10%, they are likely to be approved.
During USHE’s first meeting since the legislative session ended, the organization’s Chief Economist Carrie Mayne introduced a Program Outcomes Dashboard designed to help universities assess programs based on student outcomes.
“One of the key offerings we wanted to display here in this dashboard is to look at trend data,” Mayne said. “So, not just a moment in time, but we need to see how these programs function over a time window.”
The dashboard ranks each institution’s top and bottom 10 programs using metrics aligned with HB265’s requirements around enrollment, graduates, re-enrollments, job placements and placement salaries. These categories align with HB265’s six reinvestment criteria.
For a brief period after the meeting, the dashboard was publicly accessible.
During this window, data showed the University of Utah’s top-performing programs included mathematics, health services, engineering, biology and computer science. Programs ranking in the bottom 10 included linguistics, parks and recreation, peace studies and conflict resolution, mental health and social services and the arts. The dashboard has since been password-protected.
What programs are high-risk at the U?
The U began preparing for potential budget changes even before the final legislation was passed. In the fall of 2024, the administration ran a “planning exercise” with its programs, challenging each program to identify ways to reallocate portions of their budget, Randall said.
“So we already have a kind of generic list of things [that may have their funding reinvested] that doesn’t apply the lens of the bill to it,” he added.
Specific plans emerged through internal communications obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune in December 2024. Emails between Randall, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Mitzi Montoya and CEO of University of Utah Health, Michael Good, revealed different approaches.
In these communications, Montoya indicated that academic colleges should prepare for 10% cuts, while “services and support areas” should “plan for reductions of up to ten to twenty-five percent.”
These “service and support areas” include resources like mental health services, disability services, student government, DEI programs, digital learning programs, the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Enrollment Management.
While these internal discussions provide some insight into the university’s initial planning approach, they still leave questions about how specific academic programs will be affected.
Impact on current and future students
As the June deadline approaches, questions remain about how the legislation will affect students’ educational paths.
“With respect to cutting programs, the legislature has been very sympathetic to the students who are in those programs,” Randall said. “You’ll read about a kind of phased approach and a teach-out language.”
This language ensures current university students can complete their programs as structured when they enrolled, even if those programs are modified or eventually eliminated due to reinvestment decisions. Programs slated for elimination, however, would stop accepting new students while allowing existing students to finish their degrees.
Randall said the most difficult aspect of implementing HB265 will be communicating program changes to prospective students whose intended major may be discontinued.
“We’re committed to getting them through one way or another,” he said. “And [for] the issues we continue to have questions on, we’ll be seeking a lot of student and faculty feedback.”
