Dive Brief:

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln is set to eliminate bachelor’s degrees in ethnic studies and insect science after system regents voted to approve the cuts Thursday. 
• In requesting the deletions, UNL leaders cited low enrollment and graduate numbers that fell short of state requirements. The cuts follow the tumultuous eliminations of academic programs at UNL last year as part of a budget-saving effort. 
• The regents also approved several other program cuts throughout the University of Nebraska System, including the elimination of two graduate-level programs at its Kearney campus and three at the Omaha campus.

Dive Insight:

In introducing the proposal to cut the ethnic studies major, UNL Executive Vice Chancellor Mark Button wrote that “interest from prospective students and enrollment has shifted to the minors in lieu of the major over the last several years.” 

University officials shared enrollment figures that fell from a high of 20 students in the major during the 2020-21 academic year to nine students in two of the past three years. 

“Faculty have actively recruited students but have had more success recruiting students to the minors than to the major,” Patrick Dussault, interim dean of UNL’s arts and sciences college, wrote in a memo to Button. 

Dussault also stated that the ethnic studies major could not meet graduation thresholds set by the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education. The commission requires programs to have a five-year average of seven degrees awarded annually, according to meeting documents.

The elimination came over pushback from some audience members at Thursday’s system board meeting concerned about the impact of the cuts. 

“Removing ethnic studies as a major because of an arbitrary baseline number of majors strips away a meaningful opportunity that connects scholarship across disciplines and across multiple colleges,” Helen Moore, a retired long-time UNL faculty member,  said at the meeting. 

UNL’s insect science program has also fallen short of the commission’s requirements — in this case, for roughly a decade — prompting officials to eliminate it. Administrators said students will have the option to take the same classes as part of an entomology option under UNL's integrated science bachelor's.

Similarly, UNK sought regents’ approval for eliminating two master’s programs — long-term care management and physical education and exercise science — because they fell short of graduate thresholds. UNO moved to axe master’s degrees in urban studies and industrial and organizational psychology on the same grounds. It also requested to cut a graduate certificate in business analytics due partly to low enrollment. 

UNO, however, also plans to add new programs after receiving regents’ approval Thursday. Those include a bachelor’s in statistics and operations research, a master’s in early childhood education, and a certificate in financial planning — all intended to meet workforce demand.

NU’s medical center is also poised to cut two graduate-level certificate programs after regents’ approval.

UNL’s newest academic cuts come on top of four program eliminations that administrators pursued last year over faculty protests. Those bruising moves were part of a broader effort to slash $27.5 million from the university’s budget. 

The state commission’s minimum graduate thresholds — which allow exceptions such as for programs “critical to the role and mission of the institution” — resemble policies and laws in other states setting minimum requirements for graduates or enrollment for academic programs.

New state laws in Ohio and Indiana have led to hundreds of program cuts between the two states.

Such a framework, however, risks deleting programs that have positive budget impacts if their full revenues and costs aren’t fully accounted for, some experts have noted. Those policies can also prove costly if demand returns and universities either have to rebuild programs or potentially lose students to other institutions that offer those degrees. 

UNL and the broader NU System face more budget pressures ahead. The system as a whole stands to lose millions in state funding for the current fiscal year after Nebraska tax revenues fell short of estimates. UNL alone is bracing for a $13.9 million reduction in funding. 

UNL Interim Chancellor Katherine Ankerson said in a July community message that the university would absorb the shortfalls by putting off planned investments in classrooms, technology and infrastructure rather than cutting its workforce further. 

“A reduction in spending of this size, arriving at the start of our fiscal year and on the heels of recent and painful reductions, is a serious setback,” Ankerson said. “It is not a sustainable path for our university, nor for the health and vitality of our state.”