December 5, 2025 the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (UNL) voted to eliminate four programs to address a $27.5 million budget deficit – despite hundreds of faculty members and students pleading to save their programs. The programs cut are Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Statistics, Educational Administration, Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design. Yet, Chancellor Rodney Bennett is asked to leave the University six months before his contract expires with a $1.1 million buyout – with money the University supposedly didn’t have.
Most juniors and seniors will continue to have the opportunity to finish their degrees – such as a junior graduating with a statistics degree – although many sophomores and freshmen are being advised to switch schools entirely.
The program cuts are hurting students’ desire to go to UNL, affecting the schools reputation, and causing grief for students and staff who have built their lives on the programs at UNL.
Many of the programs that were cut were the only ones offered in the State, other than the Educational Administration college, although the college’s top ranked PhD program was unique to Nebraska.
The difficulty is, the programs being cut are not jobs that are lowering in value. The statistics field is growing worldwide. Statistics jobs are up 20–25%. There’s incredible demand – especially with artificial intelligence – not a field that is going to be easily replaced.
“Fashion design generates $2.10 for every dollar the university invests in them, with $1.5 million in external research and extension grants, $209,837 in NU Foundation support and $1.56 million in tuition revenue. Their operating budget for last year was $1.39 million.” Dakota Taylor said in an interview In the Daily Nebraskan Article “‘This hurts’: UNL eliminates 4 programs despite faculty, student pleas”
Sherilyn Fritz, a professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences asked students their plans after the program cuts, and 80% of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences students planned on leaving the University, resulting in a loss of $800,000 in tuition costs.
Dominic Sander – a senior at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln – is graduating in the Spring with a degree in Statistics. He plans to become a sports statistician and work for a professional team doing their data analytics.
“If I had known the major would be cut, I don’t think I would be at UNL,” Sander said.
The situation has left many students in the dust. With cuts primarily occurring on student’s own majors, the difficulty is eliminating the support of many students.
“Since the controversy began, campus definitely feels different. We made a lot of noise through protests and got people talking,” Sander said. “When I told people I was a statistics major, they immediately knew and expressed sympathy. They were upset, though not as distraught as those directly affected.”
The staff was informed about the proposed elimination in September, while the final decision was made at the Board of Regents meeting on December 5, 2025.
With little time to react, professors are primarily moving to similar departments. Liang Chen, 3.5 year Earth and Atmospheric Science professor will be moving to the school of Natural Resources at UNL.
Every summer, Chen runs a program for high school and college students to intern doing research in a lab studying land atmosphere interactions and impacts of climate change.
“I will continue my current research and teach the same courses at UNL,” Chen said. “However, without meteorology majors, there will be potential challenges in recruiting students to conduct research in my lab. We will still offer some meteorology and climatology courses at SNR, but for students who want to become meteorologists at the national weather service, they will have to go to another state to pursue their career.”
Some students who had hoped to attend UNL will now have to change their plans, and attend college elsewhere.
The cuts occurring at UNL are making the college search even more difficult for many students. Nora Moehlenhoff, a senior at East planning to major in pre-health to be a PA will be attending UNL in the fall. Her major is secure at the University, allowing her to be set up well, financially, for college, as she is staying in state.
“It is very difficult for people who need financial aid, especially for those where in-state tuition makes college more accessible,” Moehlenhoff said. I’m very happy about pre-health being secure in the budget cut process, but it is unfortunate for many other majors.”
The lack of funding in the University takes a toll on students.
Unfortunately, the University is still making plenty of budget cuts, and all of the University of Nebraska schools are struggling. The Chancellor’s office, Vice Chancellor’s office, Business, and Finance are making cuts of $2.95 million, $750,000 is cut from Colleges of Business, Engineering, and Journalism and Mass Communications, and $850,000 of state aided funding is cut from the Division of Student Life.
Restructuring UNL and UNMC would have been an option that would cut overhead costs without majorly affecting student’s lives – including merging administration as well as UNL’s statistics and UNMC’s biostatistics program, although there was such a large sum of money needed, that the school had to scavenge for so much.
The real problem is coming from the tax dollars and federal funding. The University is really in a tough situation as are hundreds of other institutions across the country.
People can’t vote for a President and choose to pay fewer tax dollars while complaining about majors being cut. The situation is extremely unfortunate – but the University is not entirely to fault.
The University’s 5% tuition increase is not enough to keep up with inflation and the state’s decreasing funding.
“Twenty-five years ago, the state allocated $388 million to the university — 34% of NU’s total budget and 74% of the state-aided budget,” Flatwater Free Press said. “This year, that funding has grown to $699 million. But that allocation pays for much less — 19% of the total budget and 63% of the state-aided budget,” Federal cuts to research are occurring as well with the Trump administration with billions in national research dollars. As of this fall, the university has already lost $88 million in federal research dollars. Thousands of grants are freezing, reimbursement limits, and even more research cuts are being pushed nationally. Tax money previously used on Universities is now used on the Federal government. National issues are now reaching locals, and we are seeing the effect of the Trump Administration’s lack of educational support as well as the State legislature backing it.
“For the last couple of years, the discourse at the Legislature has been, ‘Sorry, you have enough money already,’” John Shrader, president of the faculty senate at UNL said to Flatwater Free Press. “We’re the bad guys, because we have a $27 million deficit, but frankly, the investment in this campus has not been as high as it needs to be for us to be what they want us to be.”
UNL is in a very difficult position, and while the decisions on the cuts and the lack of transparency are hurtful for some students’ success and unfair, the University is in an extremely difficult situation, and the government must prioritize funding education.
“Every time the state doesn’t do its part to fund the university, moms and dads are going to get saddled with higher tuition checks, and students are going to get saddled with higher debt,” Conrad said to Flatwater Free Press. “And (fewer) kids are going to seek the university system because we’re pricing it out of reach.”
