UW requests $4 million for coal research, athletics, medical education
Gov. Mark Gordon reduced the university’s initial $18 million request by more than 75%. Lawmakers will craft a supplemental state budget during the upcoming session.
Going into the 2025 General Session of the Wyoming Legislature, which kicks off next month, the University of Wyoming hopes to secure almost $4.1 million in additional funding from the state.
The legislature passes a two-year budget every other year. In the off years, state agencies — including the university — request supplemental funding to cover previously unforeseen costs.
University leaders defended their $4.1 million request before the Joint Appropriations Committee Tuesday. UW President Ed Seidel explained the additional funding, if awarded, will be used to maintain or enhance university athletics, opportunities in medical education and research into alternative uses for coal.
“This is your university,” Seidel told lawmakers. “It’s doing some great things, I think, for the students and for the state, and I’m pretty excited about where we are.”
The president touted the university’s economic impact on the state of Wyoming.
“The Center for Business and Economic Analysis just completed a study a couple of months ago that puts the value of UW’s annual contribution to the state’s economy at $720 million,” Seidel said. “But when you include impacts from alumni, that figure rises to over $1.36 billion per year … We pride ourselves on that impact and the connection to the entire state.”
Seidel added UW provides affordable access to higher education for young people across Wyoming. Noting that nationally 60% of college graduates are burdened with student debt, Seidel said 39% of UW graduates experience the same.
“For Wyoming [resident] students, those numbers are even more impressive — 86% of Wyoming high school graduates receive some form of a Hathaway Scholarship, and for those students with the Hathaway, about 67% graduate without any student loan debt,” Seidel said. “So we’re proud of those figures. They’re among the best in the nation.”
Yet UW has struggled with enrollment since before the pandemic. The student headcount has fallen 13% since 2018 and UW is scrambling to attract more students.
Seidel said he and his colleagues “have to do better to recruit from a shrinking pool of students, both in state and out of state” but he also put a positive spin on the current enrollment figures.
“There are clearly enrollment challenges across the country, and our enrollment at UW this year is basically flat — down less than 1% from last year,” the president told lawmakers. “And that is very significantly better than the national average.”
Lawmakers did not question Seidel about the university’s enrollment decline. Nor did they question him about UW’s efforts to remove or rework diversity, equity and inclusion functions across campus, the trustees’ recent decision to uphold a campus ban on concealed carry, or Seidel’s own decision to abruptly oust Provost Kevin Carman earlier this semester.
These topics are not directly connected to the supplemental requests UW is making, but that hasn’t stopped the JAC from questioning university officials about their decision-making in the past. When Seidel and other leaders presented to the panel last year, lawmakers took the opportunity to grill them about a dispute in the College of Health Sciences.
UW was originally asking for more than $18 million in supplemental funding this year, but Gov. Mark Gordon slashed the university’s request to less than a fourth of that — refusing to endorse the use of state money to match private donations and rejecting proposals to fund marketing or transfer student initiatives.
However, the governor has backed a university request that aims to offset the inflation driving up the price of an ongoing coal research project — to the tune of an additional $2 million. Gordon also endorsed the release of $1.5 million to support athletics amid a major shakeup in college sports and the release of $500,000 to support a new medical education partnership with the University of Utah.
The JAC is now tasked with “working” the budget, deciding whether to accept, reject or modify each request — not only from UW but from every state agency. The result of this process is the supplemental budget bill that all state lawmakers will consider during the 2025 General Session. That session begins Jan. 14; lawmakers will take on the budget bill during the first week of February.
The full state budget, as recommended by the governor and yet to be endorsed by JAC, can be found here.
Governor supports $4 million of UW’s requests
The governor endorsed a little over $4 million of the university’s $18 million request, supporting half a million for medical education, $1.5 million for athletics, and more than $2 million for a coal research project.
Sending medical students to Utah ($500,000)
The requested medical education funding is meant to support a new contract with the University of Utah School of Medicine reserving five positions for students from Wyoming seeking a medical degree.
The biennium budget passed by lawmakers and signed by the governor earlier this year included the following footnote:
The University of Wyoming shall review opportunities, feasibility and costs associated with expanding medical education and training for Wyoming students, including broader use of WICHE, expanded agreements with WWAMI and new relationships with public universities in the western regional United States.
The proposed Utah partnership grew out of this review.
“We’ve done that work,” Seidel said, adding he “made multiple visits” to Salt Lake City and “developed very strong relationships there.”
Dr. Ben Chan, an academic and administrator with the School of Medicine, was in Cheyenne Tuesday, testifying alongside Seidel about the merits of their planned partnership.
“Our two states share a very close history and culture together,” Chan said, highlighting a decades-long agreement between medical schools in Utah and Wyoming that ended in the 1990s. “When I became dean of admissions in 2012, I approached our senior leadership and said, ‘Let’s get more Wyoming residents back to our medical school.’ And they enthusiastically replied yes.”
But that renewed bridge has been limited.
“We have three Wyoming students come every year, and they’re some of the best and brightest in our school,” Chan said. “However, to fully implement — to address the Wyoming physician workforce needs — we envision creating a pipeline.”
The proposed partnership would reserve five spots at the University of Utah School of Medicine for Wyoming residents. For a significantly reduced tuition, those Cowboy State residents would complete their degree in the Beehive State. They would be required to return to Wyoming and practice there for some amount of time after graduation.
Chan said his own work in Salt Lake has put him in touch with the healthcare realities of rural western Wyoming.
“I’m a hospitalist, so I take care of kids with depression, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders,” he said. “And when I’m on service, I’m struck by the amount of Wyoming children that come to our facility.”
Chan said the partnership would be “an amazing first step” to addressing Wyoming’s mental health crisis as well as its healthcare workforce shortage.
House Settlement backfill ($1.5 million)
The $1.5 million in requested athletics funding would be used to address an expected court settlement’s impact on the University of Wyoming.
That settlement is the result of three high-profile lawsuits brought by former collegiate athletes against the NCAA. An agreement between the parties has already received preliminary approval and will set the stage for universities to begin paying players.
“The settlement includes roughly $2.7 billion in back damages to athletes and a form of revenue sharing going forward, starting in 2025,” UW Athletics Director Tom Burman told the committee.
The NCAA will foot that $2.78 billion bill, meaning the association will have less money to give schools like UW. And in the new world established by the settlement, UW will have to spend more in the coming years to recruit talent.
“Financial implications for UW and all Division I schools include immediate reduction at the University of Wyoming of $550,000 annually that the NCAA has provided to its members via conferences,” Burman said. “[Also] changes to scholarship rules, which allow schools to scholarship more athletes in nearly all sports. This means that schools that do not offer more scholarships, or additional scholarships, will be at a disadvantage competitively.”
Coal project demonstration ($2.09 million)
Additionally, the university requested $2.09 million for an inflation adjustment for an ongoing project at the Wyoming Innovation Center in Campbell County.
The project is part of the School of Energy Resources’ Carbon Engineering Initiative, which aims to develop and demonstrate non-energy uses for Wyoming coal.
One such use currently being explored is flash/thermal-pyrolysis — getting the coal very hot for a very short amount of time and turning it into a char that can be used for soil amendments or building materials.
The 2022-2023 biennium budget earmarked $8 million for a pilot project demonstrating this non-energy use for coal. But inflation has driven up the cost of that project, SER Executive Director Holly Krutka told lawmakers Tuesday.
“Our supplemental budget request today is focused on addressing inflation for our pyrolysis demonstration,” she said. “We’ve done everything we can to hold down costs. Even so, I’m coming to you today to ask for $2.09 million to address historic inflation.”
Krutka said the project should be completed by the winter of 2025-2026, a little more than a year from now.
Governor slashes $14 million from UW’s requests
The governor rejected a majority of UW’s requested supplemental funding, including $12 million for matching funds between the School of Energy Resources and the university proper, $1.5 million for marketing efforts aimed at turning around UW’s falling student headcount, and half a million dollars to hire transfer student advisors.
Private donation matching funds ($12 million)
UW asked for $12 million in state funds to match private donations 1:1, in the hope of encouraging more “philanthropic giving.”
Of this requested $12 million, $2 million was for the School of Energy Resources and $10 million was for the university more broadly.
The governor recommended denying both requests, neither of which were discussed during the appropriations meeting Tuesday.
UW frequently requests matching funds to bolster private donations.
Going into the State Legislature’s 2024 Budget Session last winter, UW had requested up to $20 million in matching funds. The governor cut that request down to $5 million only to then see members of the appropriations committee bring the figure back up to $12 million — the amount UW ultimately received.
Other slashed requests ($2 million)
Gordon also rejected a request for $1.5 million the university hoped to use for marketing initiatives and another $500,000 request it would have used to hire community college transfer student advisors.
The University of Minnesota and The University of Wisconsin enjoy tuition reciprocity. Good neighbors.