Dive Brief:
- The University of Denver is consolidating five schools and colleges into two as it looks to streamline its academic structures and create a “more connected, flexible academic experience for students,” university officials said Tuesday.
- DU also plans to eliminate five departments, though the academic programs under the departments will continue, the university’s provost said in a memo to employees.
- The changes come after recent years of budget pressures at the private nonprofit university. After facing a projected budget deficit of up to $30 million, DU’s board approved a fiscal 2027 budget last week that is balanced by leaving vacant staff positions unfilled and cutting expenses, according to a spokesperson.
Dive Insight:
While DU has experienced financial woes in recent years, officials did not frame the academic consolidation as a money-saving effort but rather a means of breaking down institutional siloes.
“These strategic changes are intended to address significant market shifts, strengthening demand in a competitive market,” Chancellor Jeremy Haefner and Provost Elizabeth Loboa said in the announcement.
The plan includes:
- Combining DU’s graduate schools of social work, professional psychology and education into a single college that will focus on education, behavioral and clinical sciences.
- Merging the engineering and computer science school with its college of natural sciences and mathematics, as well as its kinesiology and sport studies program. The combined unit will focus on science, engineering and health innovation, officials said.
- Eliminating DU’s religious studies and electrical and computer engineering departments this year. Another three departments — philosophy;, socio-legal studies;, and gender, women's, and sexuality studies — voluntarily opted to shut down, per a university spokesperson.
- Integrating DU’s performing arts education by combining theater, music and dance units.
- Creating new units to boost the university’s language and culture programs, as well as its communication and media arts programs.
Haefner and Loboa said they expect to roll out the college and school consolidations over the next academic year, with details to come later on new names and structures. This fall, they expect to launch internal searches for deans to lead the two new colleges.
Current students and those enrolling in the fall will be able to complete their degrees as planned, the pair said.
In her memo to employees, Loboa signaled that there could be more consolidation to come.
“These reorganizations serve the goals of reducing silos and promoting enhanced interdisciplinary opportunities for our faculty and students by reducing redundant costs in administrators and administrative staff, and freeing resources to invest in innovation and strength in these new consolidated units in the years ahead,” she said.
The university has faced operating pressure in recent years amid enrollment declines, though it remains financially healthy relative to many of its private nonprofit peers.
Its operating losses shrunk to $5.8 million in fiscal 2025, down from $7.3 million the year before, according to its latest financials. However, DU ran an overall surplus both years when factoring in endowment income and other non-operating revenue.
But the university also saw a 2.1% year-over-year decline in tuition revenue to $354.7 million. Its grants and contracts revenue also fell significantly, by nearly $6 million, after the Trump administration axed numerous federal research grants to the university.
The tuition revenue decline follows enrollment struggles in recent years. From 2021 to 2024, fall headcount dropped 9.3% to 12,813 students, according to federal data.
In January, Fitch Ratings affirmed DU’s A-level credit score. But analysts also gave it a negative outlook, indicating potential downgrades down the road. They cited “enrollment instability and concern over smaller incoming classes, increasing institutional aid requirements and the impact on net tuition revenue in fiscal 2026 and beyond.”
