By Lina McDonald
Faculty, staff and students gathered at the University’s Budget Task Force open session on April 9, where the committee released its proposed operating budget for the next fiscal year. After several turbulent years following the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the University was operating at a deficit, the new proposed budget will minimize this gap.
The projected 2026 fiscal year expenditure base is currently set at $94.6 million. This budget assumes a tuition and fee revenue of $68.6 million, which is contingent on the number of students that enroll for the 2025-26 school year. The University’s goal for new student enrollment is 475 undergraduates, 65 transfers and 121 graduate students, for a total of 661 new students and a total full-time enrollment of 1887. Comparatively, for the 2024-25 school year, new student enrollment was about 10 percent lower, with 600 students total matriculating at the University and a total full-time enrollment of 1744 students.
The Budget Task Force consists of four staff members, two professors and two students. This team has been meeting since October to workshop the new budget and plan for fiscal year 2026, fielding input from campus organizations like ASUPS, Vice President for Enrollment Tim Whittum, the Faculty Salary Committee, and University President Isiaah Crawford.
Enrollment has dwindled in the years following the pandemic; colleges all across the country have faced similar challenges. Puget Sound hopes to return to a steady full-time enrollment of 2,345 students in both graduate and undergraduate programs by the 2034-35 school year. Plans to increase this number include bolstering graduate programs such as the Master’s of Public Health and enticing new students through increased financial aid and renovated facilities. Chief Financial Officer Kim Kvaal emphasized that efforts to increase the University’s appeal in a crowded market are a key focus of Vice President for Enrollment Whittum.
“The more applications that we have, then the more admission offers we can extend,” said Kvaal. “That grows the number of students who matriculate. We also recruit transfer students. That’s a growing population for us as well, and we’ve been able to make improvements on retention.” Projections for the next few years assume an 86 percent retention rate, according to the presentation. The overall goal is 90 percent for the future, making this estimate relatively close to what the University hopes to achieve.
Operating losses for the coming fiscal year will be funded by the University’s quasi-endowment, which was approved by the Board of Trustees. Quasi-endowments are managed by the Board of Trustees as a whole, giving the Board the ability to direct its usage. This differs from donor-restricted endowment funds, where donors can request that funds be alloted for specific purposes. Dr. Drew Kerkhoff, provost and budget task force chair, noted that this decision was not a new one. “The University had been operating with a structural deficit for the last couple of years that the Board of Trustees has allowed us to fill with funds from a quasi-endowment,” Kerkhoff said. Kvaal said that this decision allowed the University to maintain its offerings, such as major options and diverse course choices, throughout the pandemic when enrollment dipped. “The Board has had the foresight and the fortitude to weather an operating deficit to allow us to make these adjustments more incrementally so it preserves the student experience,” Kvaal said.
However, dependence on the quasi-endowment cannot continue in perpetuity. Professor of Politics and Government Robin Jacobson, who presented at the open session, emphasized that quasi-endowment withdrawals now will limit its availability going forward. As a result of withdrawals from the past few years, the University must limit its endowment-funded spending by $1 million in the future. For the upcoming fiscal year, the revenue base is supplemented by the $7 million draw from the endowment. This ensures full funding of planned expenditures.
In the future, Kvaal and the University’s financial experts hope to broaden the external sources from which aid funds can be drawn. “So we’re looking at more federal, state, and private grant opportunities, and recently hired a director for sponsored research that can help us identify funding opportunities and help us apply,” Kvaal said.
Additionally, the 2026 fiscal budget will be funded by a higher tuition rate for students. Tuition is set to increase by 4.75%, bringing the cost of a Puget Sound education to $65,270 per year, not including room and board. Some of last year’s budget went to an increase in aid offered to students after the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form was nationally delayed, complicating students’ ability to determine their aid eligibility. This was not planned, however, and resulted in uncertainty that resulted in lower-than-anticipated new student enrollment and institutional aid that exceeded the budgeted amount.
If approved by the University’s Board of Trustees in May, the budget will go into effect on July 1. The Budget Task Force’s long-term goal is to establish budget equilibrium by 2028, at which point Puget Sound would be operating at a surplus. After five financially unstable post-COVID fiscal years, the proposed budget for 2026 hopes to return the University to pre-pandemic standards and strengthen its overall financial standing.