LINCOLN — In the past five years, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has weathered $75 million in cuts. Cuts to staff. Cuts to university libraries. Cuts to colleges that have taught UNL students for more than a century.
But the pain from those cuts, spread over years, likely will be dwarfed by what’s to come, as the state’s flagship university moves to slash $27.5 million by the end of the calendar year.
The total, announced by Chancellor Rodney Bennett in early August, represents nearly 6% of UNL’s state-aided budget. It exceeds the budgets of some entire colleges, including the College of Architecture, the College of Journalism and Mass Communications and the College of Law — combined.
What, exactly, will fall on the chopping block remains to be seen. Under a timeline released last month, UNL plans to reveal its proposed cuts in the coming week.
Everything — including closing or consolidating colleges — is on the table, said Mike Zeleny, outgoing vice chancellor for business and finance. Previous reductions, he said, focused primarily on trimming from the top of multiple areas. That approach will not work this time around.
“It’s something that’s very challenging because it means that the university might not be providing that discipline or that area of study going forward,” Zeleny said. “And it’s really important that we serve the state and the industries of the state and the workforce, and in many areas, we’re the only such program in the state. So it’s really critical to look at all of the factors, but yes, it’s very possible that that could be a part of the reduction.”
Informing the process is the university’s desire to reenter the Association of American Universities, which ousted UNL in 2011 — making it the only Big Ten institution without membership. The university is using research metrics, based on AAU membership values, to help decide which areas should be cut.
“Looking at each program through that filter is a first step, and then the next steps include some of the more qualitative measures — the state’s workforce needs, whether something is unique in the state, student demand, future student demand,” Zeleny said.
John Shrader, president of the Faculty Senate, said he has concerns about the quick timeline for the cuts. His concerns are exacerbated by the rollout of these metrics. They’re aspirational rather than immediately achievable, he said.
“My problem is that they were defined before anybody whose job is going to be eliminated was given an opportunity to meet those metrics,” Shrader said.
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The University of Nebraska’s flagship campus has been heralded as an economic game changer for the Cornhusker state.
A February report by Tripp Umbach, a national consulting firm hired by the university, found that UNL had an annual impact of $3.1 billion on the state’s economy. It provided more than 25,000 jobs in 2024, and generated $84 million in tax revenue.
But maintaining that impact amid growing expenses and declining revenues has been a tightrope walk. UNL has faced a structural deficit for several years, driven by smaller-than-requested legislative appropriations and inflationary pressure on big-ticket items such as health care, insurance and utilities.
The university has made cuts to its budget every fiscal year since 2020. All but one of those cuts was less than $20 million; in fiscal year 2024, UNL cut $23 million from its operating budget. But when the Legislature approved a 0.625% increase in state dollars for the NU System this year, far short of the requested 3.5%, it became clear that those past cuts weren’t enough to steady the ship.
At the same time, Zeleny said UNL has taken on unfunded mandates by the Legislature — including tuition waivers for groups like first responders and families of deceased or disabled veterans. He estimated that costs the university around $4 million annually.
A reduction in international student enrollment has also chipped away at UNL’s budget surety. International students often pay more than domestic students who are eligible for scholarships and federal aid. In 2016-17, international students made up 11.1% of UNL’s student body — a number that plummeted to 6.8% by the fall of 2023. International student enrollment is expected to drop further this year amid an increasingly hostile environment toward immigrants at the federal level.
In all, the university has seen a decrease in net tuition of 6.1% from fiscal year 2020 to 2025.
“So it’s been a perfect storm of reasons,” Zeleny said.
To avoid future cuts, UNL would need increased tuition revenue and state appropriations, Zeleny said. But at the moment, there appears to be little political appetite for the latter. Gov. Jim Pillen initially proposed a 2% cut to the university system’s appropriation this year before the Legislature ultimately approved the 0.625% increase. The state is grappling with its own budget deficit.
Zeleny said it’s difficult to predict state appropriations, but added that they’re more likely to see an increase if they can identify shared priorities.
“I think it’s really important to look at how the university and the state can best work together to accomplish the growth goals,” he said.
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Short of increased state funding, UNL will have to continue to make hard choices. Chief among them this year was the decision to freeze salaries and increase tuition by an average of 5% across campuses. If they had offered a 3% raise to staff, it would have required another $9 million in budget cuts, Zeleny said.
But that reasoning is a hard pill to swallow for faculty and staff, especially when morale is already low on campus, Shrader said.
“And it creates much more divisiveness among the faculty and its relationship with administration when you start making the faculty feel like it’s their job to close the deficit, because it’s not,” Shrader said.
UNL also is looking to cut salary costs by offering voluntary buyouts. Under that program, tenured faculty 62 or older who have served for at least 10 years will be eligible to receive 70% of their base salary in exchange for retiring. The NU System as a whole has 432 eligible faculty spread across its campuses — UNL, including the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, has 219 faculty eligible. Applications are due Sept. 30.
“It’s a mixed blessing, for sure, because we lose a lot of talent that has been serving the university and the state for a very long time,” Zeleny said. “But the other part of the mixed blessing is it frees up resources for, unfortunately, in this case, budget reductions, but also, investment in strategic priorities.”
This isn’t the first time the university has offered faculty buyouts. They were offered in 2010, 2014 and 2019 — but each time, the amount offered to faculty to incentivize retiring has decreased. That makes this year’s offer less attractive, Shrader said.
“I think that the terms they’re offering are underwhelming to a lot of faculty members,” he said.
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The budget crisis faced by UNL and the NU System at large is far from unique. Multiple peer universities, including the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Kansas and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities have announced budget cuts this year.
“Many, if not most, large universities in other states are cutting budgets even more as a percentage than we are,” Zeleny said.
State legislatures in other Midwest states also have taken proactive steps to reduce university budgets. Indiana and Ohio both passed legislation pushing for closure of programs with low enrollment, prompting Purdue University and Ohio State University to cut multiple programs to comply.
And federal funding cuts under the Trump administration have added yet another stressor to higher education. Lingering uncertainty over the future of federal funding has hamstrung planning efforts for many colleges and universities.
The cuts in neighboring states offer a window into possible actions UNL could take to close its deficit. Shrader said he wouldn’t be surprised to see significant program consolidation or closures.
“And I think it’s very likely, almost certain, that the proposal includes the merging of colleges,” Shrader said. “I do not gamble. I do not bet on anything ever. But if I did, I would bet on that happening.”
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