Over the past decade, higher education spending in Utah has doubled, administrative costs per student have jumped by more than 75% and student enrollment has increased by less than 24%.
State House Speaker Mike Schultz said Tuesday he is determined to dissect how every dime is spent and to identify how universities and colleges can do more with fewer taxpayer dollars.
“For some reason, it has never happened on higher education,” Schultz, R-Hooper, told the Deseret News and KSL editorial boards on Tuesday. “We have an opportunity to turn the tide and have higher ed refocus on what’s most important.”
For Utah’s House Republican caucus, education is the No. 1 priority going into the 2025 Legislative session, “and it probably starts with higher education,” according to Schultz.
The main objectives will be to realign university investments with a focus on student success post-graduation, workforce needs and industry demands in the state, all while reducing administrative costs and consolidating certain majors — objectives that University of Utah President Taylor Randall told the Deseret News he shares.
On Tuesday, Schultz revealed that this university overhaul will begin with a bill, sponsored by Higher Education Appropriations Chair Karen Peterson, R-Clinton, that will provide the Utah Board of Higher Education with criteria on how to reevaluate the effectiveness of university programs.
The board will conduct the review over the next several months and will return to the Legislature during the interim with plans detailing how each institution of higher education can reallocate funds to better serve Utahns, Schultz said.
Schultz pushed back against claims that he is motivated by culture war criticisms of liberal arts programs. What he is opposed to, Schultz said, are instances where several Utah universities fund the same programs that collectively produce just a handful of graduates.
“Let’s collapse them, close those programs, still have a couple universities provide those opportunities for our kids, our students and our grandkids, but then let’s take that savings and reinvest it into areas that the economy is screaming for,” Schultz said.
Nursing, engineering and nuclear energy are just some of the programs Schultz would like to see boosted with greater resources. But, ultimately, Schultz said the Legislature wants to provide guidelines and then allow “those that know the system best” to recommend changes.
Schultz is hoping there will be “quite a bit of collaboration” with university presidents to find solutions to the spiking cost of tuition and student preparedness for a changing economy.
What is the University of Utah doing to cut costs?
On these issues, including trimming administrative costs, Schultz said University of Utah President Taylor Randall is already well “ahead” of the Legislature.
In a phone call with the Deseret News on Tuesday, Randall said the university and the Legislature share the same broad priority: to ensure that Utah’s institutions of higher education are preparing the greatest number of Utahns for a future of “profound economic upheaval that’s completely unrelenting, accelerating irreversible, driven by technological change.”
“We have to lead that change, rather than let it come at you, which means you have to improve access to education for all Utahns, affordably, and we have to be much more accountable to ourselves to make sure that we are investing in the right places,” Randall said. “What we’re really trying to do is to create a university that has unsurpassed societal impact.”
This entails constantly reanalyzing university administration to guarantee what Randall calls “operational excellence,” which includes improving the quality of instruction, strengthening the connection between educational training and the realities of the workplace, and finding room to innovate.
The University of Utah recently announced a shared services initiative between four different colleges on campus that will pool resources for counseling, financial aid and career services to “accelerate graduation rates dramatically and dramatically improve labor force readiness.”
Consolidation and budget reallocations do not have to damage the diversity of higher education opportunities in the state, Randall said. Ideally, it would do the opposite.
In close collaboration with universities, Randall said the review process being promoted by lawmakers could allow Utah’s 16 institutions of higher education to function more like a system, as schools are given more freedom to specialize in their individual strengths.
“I think it’s time for us to think more like a system, and how we should operate like a system. I think it will deliver a higher quality education to the state,” Randall said.
House Republican’s goals for the 2025 legislative session, which begins on Tuesday, fits into a broader three-year vision.
Last year, lawmakers prohibited discriminatory Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, clarified the chain of command between university presidents and faculty boards, and provided conditions for the dismissal of tenured faculty.
This year, the Legislature plans to lay out guidelines for the Utah Board of Higher Education to evaluate college programs. And next year, the Legislature will be positioned to implement some of those budget changes.
Hopefully at the end of this process, Utah’s institutions of higher education are better equipped to prepare students for the world and do so at a more reasonable price, Schultz said.
“We will lead the nation on getting these changes and getting it right,” Schultz said. “And if we do it right, it will bend the cost of tuition going through the roof. I’m confident in it.”