Utah News Dispatch
Legislature defers USU reinvestment plans, asks for less nursing, more natural resource programs
Utah State University’s Old Main is pictured on Oct. 8, 2024. (Photo by Kelly Winter for Utah News Dispatch)
Almost all public universities advanced in the Utah Legislature’s mandated process to cut “inefficient” programs in order to direct their funding into high-demand course offerings that may lead to higher paying jobs.
But Utah State University, which is undergoing a leadership transition and included in its original plans its intent to expand its nursing program, didn’t make the cut.
Hooper Republican House Speaker Mike Schultz said during an interim executive appropriations meeting on Monday he had concerns about the reinvestment plans the school has presented so far as required by a 2025 law that ordered universities to cut 10% of their budget for courses and then allocate the funds to expand programs that may have waitlists.
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This is the last step the universities had to go through before implementing their reinvestment plans. But USU’s plans have been deferred until a new university president presents a revised plan.
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“I have a hard time understanding why we would be expanding into nursing into Utah State University. You have Weber State up there that has a fantastic program already in northern Utah,” Schultz said. “To me, it just seems duplicative and kind of goes against what we’re trying to accomplish.
According to a Utah System of Higher Education presentation, health care is the No. 1 category the public universities system as a whole has identified for its reinvestment funds. So far, plans are to allocate 32.6% of the joint reinvestment account for that area.
Nursing was one of the study areas a legislative audit — which helped inform the new law — specifically identified as in high demand.
But that need isn’t a fact that Schultz contested during the Monday meeting. For him, the issue was that other institutions could pick up that expansion. That, in addition to the amount of new schools and administrative roles that Utah State University proposed.
Within the reinvestment process, Utah State University has to cut and reallocate at least $12.5 million from its current budget. In the current plan, the largest chunk of the money will go to what the school describes as “technologies and careers of the future,” which includes a new school of computing, a new chemical engineering program, an AI center and an aviation expansion.
A big portion of the funds is also going to health and well-being workforce, including $1.2 million allocated to expand mental health programs, $1 million for a nursing expansion, $775,000 for a new college of health and human sciences, and $385,300 for a new doctor of physical therapy.
With Utah State University being the state’s sole land-grant institution, Schultz said, it is “uniquely set up to be doing natural resources, and working hard on natural resources; energy, critical minerals. These are things that are so important to our economy right now, and Utah’s leading out on so many of these things already.”
Schultz was also disappointed to not see more about agriculture innovation research in the plans, he said.
Alan Smith, interim president of USU, said the university is still investing in areas like energy engineering, chemical engineering and other mining programs. Some of that investment is part of this specific initiative, but funding for them also comes from other ongoing state investment.
Last year when the university doubled its space for pre-nursing majors to 120 spots a year, they were filled immediately, Smith said.
“We’d like to expand on that, because there’s a clear, strong interest and a strong need throughout the state, and I think there’s room for multiple institutions to have strength there,” Smith said. “We welcome Weber being in that arena, the U. being in that arena, and others, because there’s a true shortage.”
Despite those concerns, the decision to defer the approval of USU’s reinvestment plans was expected, said Amanda DeRito, the university’s associate vice president for strategic communications.
At each step of the process with the Utah Board of Higher Education and other legislative panels, “approval of Utah State University’s plan was conditional on approval from our next president,” she said in a statement.
