The University of Nebraska Board of Regents will consider the university system’s 2027-29 biennial budget requests when it meets Thursday morning at 9:00 at Varner Hall in Lincoln. The university is requesting an inflation-based 4.25 percent increase to the base budget for both the University of Nebraska System and the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in each year of the two-year budget cycle.
University President Jeffrey P. Gold says the request is based on a multi-year rolling average of the Consumer Price Index and is intended to help the university keep pace with rising costs. “We must keep up with the rising cost of doing business,” Gold says. “An investment in the future of the university is an investment in the future vitality of Nebraska.”
The regents will also consider several strategic funding requests. Those include $1.5 million each year for the Presidential Scholars Program, which provides full-ride scholarships and a $5,000 annual stipend to qualifying Nebraska high school graduates with perfect ACT scores who attend an NU campus.
The university is also seeking $5 million in the first year to restore previous cuts to state biomedical research support. Another request would re-appropriate $25 million originally approved in 2022 for the Ag Tech Incubator and Accelerator while fundraising continues for a matching $25 million.
The university also wants $25 million in the first year and $30 million in the second year to replace its Enterprise Resource Planning system. The system handles services including finance, accounting, facilities management, student services, payroll and procurement. The current on-premises software is being phased out.
“After years of reductions, we have reached a point where additional cuts will inevitably diminish our ability to serve Nebraskans, strengthen our workforce and fuel the state’s economic growth,” Gold says.