At the University of Nebraska-Kearney, budget cuts could impact the humanities program at the college.
The proposal for the budget cuts ran up to $3 million and would completely eliminate theater, modern language, journalism and other humanities programs. In addition, these cuts would leave many faculty and staff members, specifically in these programs, without a job.
“The University of Nebraska is facing a 58 million dollar fall in the university system…UNK has $4.3 million that we’re trying to make up as a part of those budget cuts,” Todd Gottula, senior director of communications and marketing, said in an article published by Nebraska TV. Gottula believes if it were a perfect world, there would be an even distribution of the budget cuts instead of focusing solely on the arts and humanities departments.
UNK isn’t the only college facing these budget cuts as University of Nebraska-Lincoln is also seeing some change, but UNK is experiencing some of the largest cuts across the state. The reason behind this is their continuous low enrollment and low graduation rates from select programs in the arts and humanities department.
“There’s minimum performance standards that we have to have seven or more degrees awarded per year over a five year average in every program on campus,” Gottula said. “None of these degrees are currently meeting that minimum requirement,” according to Flatwater Free Press.
Over the last five years, UNK had three graduates from the musical theater program, eleven graduates with a sports communications degree and eight graduates with a degree in geography. Stretching to the past decade, the enrollment for the college has dropped to almost 1,000 students. The target revenue for tuition last year was $31 million, but the revenue the college made from tuition was approximately $26.6 million.
This issue is being investigated, specifically with dropping only arts and humanities programs. Some maintain the idea that each of these programs don’t need to be offered at all three campuses in the Nebraska University system, which are UNK, Peru State College and Wayne State College. Nebraska is struggling when it comes to providing education, as there have been declining high school populations recently, meaning there won’t be as many in-state students coming to these campuses.
The future of arts and humanities programs at these campuses is up in the air, but as of right now, WSC has made no move towards budget cuts in those deparments.
It’s important that students get an education in the arts and humanities if that is what they wish to pursue, but cutting programs won’t provide those students access to substantial education.
