Kansas State University College of Arts and Sciences is undergoing an assessment process to determine how to save money as its budget sits in the red, according to university officials. The Kansas State University College of Arts and Sciences faces a $2.6 million annual budget shortfall in addition to millions owed for loans from the administration, a situation that may eliminate academic programs and cause faculty layoffs.
K-State officials presented a plan to address $13.5 million the college owes to the school’s administration, as well as the projected annual shortfall, at a September town hall, the Collegian reported. The reverberations from that meeting, where employees were told about likely layoffs and an assessment process that will occur to determine a reorganization plan, worried professors.
“The college has held two all-college meetings to discuss these challenges and has been transparent that potential options may include departmental mergers, discontinuation of academic programs and workforce reductions,” said an unattributed statement from K-State in response to Kansas Reflector questions. “No decisions have been made yet.”
The budget announcement came as state universities struggle to make up state funding shortfalls – some tied to requiring proof the universities eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion education. Fort Hays State University announced last month it was closing the Sternberg Museum of Natural History because of state budget cuts.
Ongoing budget issues The College of Arts and Sciences budget problems aren’t new, said English professor Dan Hoyt. “If we’re going to make these drastic budget cuts, healthy programs might be lost,” he said. “There is lots of talk from administration about us losing departments and maybe even the college, and forming schools. That will mean, though, fewer choices for students and less autonomy for programs, and it also will mean lots of job losses for staff.”
In university organizational structures, colleges are broader with multiple subjects while schools are smaller and more specialized. Jesse Perez Mendez, K-State provost and executive vice president, announced a new organizational process at the town hall, which involves input from faculty. Hoyt and other professors said it will require significant time and paperwork from faculty.
Hoyt and Philip Nel, an English professor, said they are concerned about the speed with which the university is tackling the organizational process. “The A and S budget has been in deficit for years, so it’s not actually news,” Nel said. “What is new is that it’s now being treated as if it’s a crisis. Arts and Sciences serves the entire university in terms of the courses that we teach, and it doesn’t bring in the same kind of grant money that perhaps other colleges do.”
Faculty in Arts and Sciences teach 40% of all the credit hours at the university, Hoyt said. Nel, Hoyt and David DeFries, an associate history professor, all question the budgeting process used in the past and the assessment process being proposed. “The budget model we were presented last year was built on assumptions that are hard to verify,” Nel said. “For example, it was built on the sustained increase of students at the time that we’re facing a demographic cliff. That’s a great narrative to promote, and even an aspiration to have, but it’s not something on which I would build the math of the budget.”
The “cliff” Nel referred to is the decrease of college-age students in the next decades because of lower birth rates. The College of Arts and Sciences decreased freshman enrollment from 713 in fall 2025 to 624 in fall 2026, according to a university dashboard. Nel said decisions are being made without consulting faculty. “There is an attempt to move power away from the faculty into central administration in order to serve what I perceive as a different mission than the one that I signed up for,” Nel said.
