Dive Brief:
- The University of Minnesota plans to cut $225 million from its budget over two years as it navigates “shifting enrollment trends, unpredictable state and federal funding, and rising costs,” senior leaders said Thursday.
- Finding savings, they added, will involve work across the public institution’s five campuses and necessitate moving from a one-year budget planning process to a two-year process.
- In announcing the savings blitz, the leaders said the enrollment and funding issues were long-term trends for the sector. “This is not a temporary change — this is an institutional inflection point that asks us to think about our work in new and bolder ways,” they wrote.
Dive Insight:
The aggressive budget-slashing effort follows multiple years of belt-tightening to shore up UMN’s budget.
Most recently, in June, the university's board approved using $98.6 million in savings and alternative revenues to balance its budget for fiscal 2027. That plan relies in large part on eliminating 165 academic positions and cutting another 64 support staff jobs.
In their message Thursday, the UMN leaders — including President Rebecca Cunningham and Provost Gretchen Ritter — didn’t say whether the current push would involve layoffs or other job cuts.
“This next phase requires deliberate choices about how to reduce expenses and redundancy while we simplify and focus how we work across both our administrative and academic portfolios,” they said, adding that there would be “difficult choices and conversations ahead.”
They highlighted that the process was intended to be collaborative between administrators and the rank and file. “We have heard a clear desire from faculty and staff for more engagement, understanding and input into the budget planning process,” the leaders said.
Prior to its current budget, UMN in 2025 hiked tuition by 6.5% at its flagship campus and cut its programmatic budgets by 7% as it wrestled with funding uncertainty and ever-rising costs.
Between fiscal years 2024 and 2025, the university’s operating loss increased by $76.9 million, or 4.9%, to $1.7 billion. But with state and federal appropriations, gifts and other nonoperating revenue factored in, the university ran surpluses of hundreds of thousands of dollars that increased over that period.
