LINCOLN – The University of Nebraska Board of Regents approved the 2027-29 biennial budget requests for the University of Nebraska System and Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture during today’s meeting.
The board approved a 4.25% increase to the base budgets of both the NU System and NCTA for each year of the biennium. The university based the request on a multiyear rolling average of the Consumer Price Index, an approach that aims to help the university consistently keep pace with rising costs.
In addition to the increase to the university’s base budget to offset inflation, the board also approved state requests to fund several strategic initiatives including:
- $1.5 million each year of the biennium to support the Presidential Scholars Program, which provides a full-ride scholarship, plus a $5,000 annual stipend, to each student who graduates from a Nebraska high school, receives a perfect score on the ACT and elects to attend college at an NU System campus;
- $5 million in the first year of the biennium to restore previous cuts to state biomedical research support;
- $25 million reappropriation originally appropriated in 2022 for the Ag Tech Incubator and Accelerator, as fundraising efforts for the matching are ongoing;
- $25 million in the first year of the biennium and $30 million in the second year to update the university’s Enterprise Resource Planning system.
During his remarks to the board, NU System President Dr. Jeffrey Gold stressed the importance of investing in the university, which contributes to everything from workforce development to community vitality to support for the state’s critical ag sector to life-saving healthcare.
“The vitality of our state depends on the vitality of its university,” Gold said. “At a time of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, investing in the University of Nebraska System is not just an investment in higher education – it is an investment in Nebraska’s future, Nebraska’s workforce, economy, communities and an investment in generations to come.”
Around 11,000 students graduate from the university’s four campuses each year. More than half of Nebraska’s healthcare professionals and nearly half of its K-12 teachers attained their degrees from a university campus. Programs in entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and precision and digital ag are preparing the next generation of university students to be competitive in a quickly evolving world.
“As we welcome back returning students, faculty and staff, as we welcome in new learners from Nebraska and around the world, it is timely to secure their future, not just in the classroom, research laboratory or on the hardwood or gridiron, but secure their future as productive Nebraskans, who will choose to stay in our communities and pay forward the gift of higher education for generations to come,” Gold said.
Regent Jim Scheer of Norfolk stressed the importance of a true partnership with the state in supporting quality and affordable higher education.
“The end result is we have to do something,” Scheer said. “We have to be able to pay our instructors, our utilities, all the other things that go along with the university.”