Attending University of Nebraska classes will be about 5 percent more expensive in 2025-26 than last year under the budget approved by the Board of Regents Thursday, June 19.
Click here for an excerpt from the meeting agenda.
At UNL, basic tuition will climb to $291 a credit hour for resident undergraduate students and $932 for nonresident students. Resident graduate students will pay $365 a credit hour and nonresidents will pay $1,066. Tuition rates are higher in the Architecture, Business, Engineering and Law colleges. But for all, the increases are about 5 percent.
The higher tuition means a resident undergraduate student will pay $4,365 per semester and the nonresident will pay $13,320 for a 15-hour load. For graduate students, assuming a 12-hour load, the cost will be $4,380 for residents and $12,792 for nonresidents.
NU expects to generate about $392 million in tuition revenues across all four campuses in 2025-26. That will be about $17 million more than last year. But the university is expecting an overall decline in tuition revenue from foreign and nonresident students. The budget projects 2025-26 income of $139 million in foreign and nonresident tuition next year, a decline of about $4.5 million from last year.
The Legislature has mandated some tuition waivers, and the budget estimates these waivers will cost the university about $9.6 million.
Student fees will not increase for students at UNL, UNO and UNK. Students at the Medical Center in Omaha will have an increase in fees on top of the tuition increase. Student fees at UNL are $667.11 per semester.
President Jeffrey Gold presented the budget proposal to the regents with the observation that one of the key elements is the small increase in state appropriations for the university. State support will increase only 0.625 percent for the coming fiscal year, much less than what the university requested. The problems caused the by smaller-than-needed increase in state money are compounded by the loss of federal grant money and increases in expenses caused by inflation.
The NU budget projects income and expenditures of more than $1.1 billion, an increase of $19 million from last year. The expenditures include $409 million in faculty salaries, 3.2 percent more than last year. But most of that increase in faculty salary money will go to UNO and UNK, both of which have faculty bargaining units that secured faculty pay increases earlier this year. Chancellor Rodney Bennett announced in May there will be no salary increases for faculty, except those connected to promotion and tenure.
The vote on the budget and tuition increases was 6-2 (not including the votes of the student regents), but none of the regents was happy about the budget. Regent Jim Scheer of Norfolk said he understood the Legislature’s desire to reduce property taxes that are levied by cities, counties and school districts, but taking money from the university is the cost of doing so. The governments that rely on property taxes can raise those taxes if state assistance is inadequate, Scheer said, but the university system can’t do that.
People talk about doing more with less, Scheer said, but “the reality is that you do less with less. You don’t do more with less.”
Tim Clare, the regent from Lincoln, said the board hired Jeffrey Gold as president in the expectation his vision would guide the university system to excellence. Instead, Gold and the rest of the administration have devoted thousands of hours to cutting costs. The university cannot achieve excellence simply by cutting costs, Clare said.
Barbara Weitz of Omaha called the vote painful. Citizens and legislators need to keep in mind the return the state derives from the investment in NU. She hoped the regents would work with business and legislative leaders to persuade them of how much the university contributes to the economy of the state.
The two regents who voted against the budget were Kathy Wilmot of Beaver City and Robert Schafer of Beatrice. Wilmot noted that the 2025-26 tuition increase was 1.5 percent higher than the increase last year, and she had opposed that, too. Wilmot agreed the university can’t cut its way to excellence but added more thought needed to be given to how to make education more affordable.
Scheer said he opposed the budget because of the financial difficulties facing the state’s farmers and ranchers. Farm bankruptcies are up 55 percent, he said, meaning for many rural families, university tuition will no longer be affordable.
The board approved the creation of a bachelor of science degree in robotics engineering at UNL, a 128-hour program. The proposal notes robotics and automation are important to many industries, including agriculture, manufacturing and health care. Nearly 100 unfilled job openings for robotics engineers exist in Nebraska, suggesting the demand for graduates with these skills.
Regent Clare called the robotics program “exactly the type of program” the university needs for future growth. Scheer agreed on the value of the program but said he was concerned about people who were displaced by new technologies.
Gold said research shows most technological changes produces more jobs that it destroys. In any event, the university is developing the kinds of stackable certificate programs that displaced workers can use to acquire new skills.
Another UNL proposal to receive approval was the creation of bachelor of arts and bachelor of science programs in multidisciplinary studies. The proposal was developed in collaboration with and has the support of state colleges and community colleges. The program would make it easier for students transferring to UNL with 60 or more hours to complete their degree program. The proposal said, “Completion of a four-year college degree is often a requirement for jobs in many employment sectors. Many of those jobs do not require a specific major, but rather the broad transferable knowledge and skills that college graduates possess.”
UNO Chancellor Joanne Li said the Omaha campus has had a multidisciplinary studies program since 1951. She was worried that creation of a program with the same name at the UNL campus might create brand confusion.
After debating whether the proposal should be tabled so that a new name could for the UNL program could be created, the regents agreed to approve it with the understanding that President Gold could work with the two campuses to develop a name that would distinguish the programs.
The regents also approved a proposal to merge the French and German degree programs into one program that would allow students to emphasize either language.
In other business, the regents approved changes to the university bylaws and regents policies.
Regent Wilmot had questions about Bylaw 1.6. That section says board approval is required for budget requests, selection of administrative officers and the creation, consolidation or elimination of any academic or administrative units. However, subsection 1.6d says the board may delegate that authority. NU General Counsel Bren Chambers said in any case, the board would have to explicitly delegate that authority before a campus official could act.
Earlier in the meeting, UNL Faculty Senate President John Schrader said the regents should make sure campus officials involve faculty in any discussions regarding the creation, consolidation or elimination of academic programs.
