University of Wyoming faces $15 million budget shortfall

After a hand-wringing legislative session that put tens of millions in University of Wyoming funding in peril, the state’s lone four-year school is facing yet another fiscal hurdle — a roughly $15 million shortfall in operating money.

While overall university funding has increased from state appropriations, most of those dollars can only be used in specific ways, leaving the school in need of money it can use flexibly for routine operating expenses.

University leaders kicked off the school’s 2027 budget process last week with this news.

“We are really grateful to the Legislature this year for funding, pretty much fully funding, our budget, and the governor supporting that, and really supporting the university,” University of Wyoming Trustee Laura Schmid-Pizzato noted within moments of starting the two-day budget hearing. “With that said, we are facing some budget shortfalls.”

The $15 million shortfall stems from enrollment decline, inflation and reduced investment income, outgoing University of Wyoming President Ed Seidel said at the hearing. In a message Seidel sent to the UW Leadership Team ahead of the meeting, the president explained that net tuition revenue is less than previously projected. Utility and core infrastructure costs continue to rise. Investment income, which is less available than in previous years, can’t pay for recurring expenses.

“They just all conspired this year to kind of create the situation that we have,” Seidel said at the budget hearing.

These challenges aren’t unique to UW. For years, falling birth rates have foreshadowed a “demographic cliff” that would lead to a drop-off in college applicants. Seidel said at the hearing that the school will have to “fight very, very hard” just to “tread water with enrollment,” given that there are simply fewer college-age people.

To add to this pressure, the Higher Education Price Index forecasts a 3.6% inflation rate for colleges and universities in the 2026 fiscal year. “Like many universities, we are operating in a more constrained financial environment,” Seidel wrote in his message to the UW Leadership Team.

After budget battle, Seidel looks optimistically to University of Wyoming’s future

Lawmakers restore most UW funding in unified budget, including $40M block grant

The university’s colleges and divisions will absorb about half of the $15 million shortfall, which will translate to roughly a 2% budget cut for each college, Seidel said at last week’s meeting. Leaders of each college and division will decide what cuts to make.

The school will assess these budget plans and results through quarterly checks, which will involve reviewing financial performance relative to budget, monitoring revenue, expenses and “emerging risks” and adjusting as necessary, the president explained in his message to the UW Leadership Team.

The other half is “intentionally unallocated” right now. This approach, Seidel said in the message, aims to make “space for thoughtful deliberation and shared governance” to align resources with the school’s priorities while considering trade-offs. Those discussions and actions need to happen by the end of the Fall 2026 semester, the president said.

The UW Leadership Team will mull the president’s proposed budget on May 5. The UW Board of Trustees, which must approve the budget, will review it on June 17. Seidel steps down as president at the end of that month. He will be replaced by Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves.

WyoFile's goal is to provide readers with information and ideas that foster constructive conversations about the issues and opportunities our communities face. One small piece of how we do that is by offering a space below each story for readers to share perspectives, experiences and insights. For this to work, we need your help.

What we're looking for:

Your real name — first and last.
Direct responses to the article. Tell us how your experience relates to the story.
The truth. Share factual information that adds context to the reporting.
Thoughtful answers to questions raised by the reporting or other commenters.
Tips that could advance our reporting on the topic.
No more than three comments per story, including replies.

What we block from our comments section, when we see it:

Pseudonyms. WyoFile stands behind everything we publish, and we expect commenters to do the same by using their real name.
Comments that are not directly relevant to the article.
Demonstrably false claims, what-about-isms, references to debunked lines of rhetoric, professional political talking points or links to sites trafficking in misinformation.
Personal attacks, profanity, discriminatory language or threats.
Arguments with other commenters.

Other important things to know:

Appearing in WyoFile’s comments section is a privilege, not a right or entitlement.
We’re a small team and our first priority is reporting. Depending on what’s going on, comments may be moderated 24 to 48 hours from when they’re submitted — or even later. If you comment in the evening or on the weekend, please be patient. We’ll get to it when we’re back in the office.
We’re not interested in managing squeaky wheels, and even if we wanted to, we don't have time to address every single commenter’s grievance.
Try as we might, we will make mistakes. We’ll fail to catch aliases, mistakenly allow folks to exceed the comment limit and occasionally miss false statements. If that’s going to upset you, it’s probably best to just stick with our journalism and avoid the comments section.
We don’t mediate disputes between commenters. If you have concerns about another commenter, please don’t bring them to us.

The bottom line:

If you repeatedly push the boundaries, make unreasonable demands, get caught lying or generally cause trouble, we will stop approving your comments — maybe forever. Such moderation decisions are not negotiable or subject to explanation. If civil and constructive conversation is not your goal, then our comments section is not for you.