‘Higher ed has lost their way,’ Gov. Cox says during budget reveal

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed his support for legislative efforts to eliminate some public university programs and to expand others that emphasize high-demand skills, during his budget reveal with the combined Deseret News and KSL editorial boards on Wednesday.

In proposing his Fiscal Year 2026 budget recommendations, Cox said he is “very supportive” of the Legislature having a heavier hand in deciding what courses colleges provide and shaping alternative post-secondary pathways to fit a shifting economy.

The overhaul of class catalogues at the state’s 16 institutions of higher education is being spearheaded by Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, with the backing of state Senate President Stuart Adams and input from a recent efficiency audit. As taxpayer-funded institutions, Cox said, universities should be brought in line with the needs, vision and values of the state.

“I am one who does believe that higher ed has lost their way across the country in very important ways,” Cox said. “They’ve forgotten their core mission and become much more in the advocacy business than the seekers of truth.”

Cox delivered an embargoed presentation of his “Where we’ve been and where we’re going” budget proposal on Wednesday along with his Lieutenant Governor, Deidre Henderson; their respective chiefs of staff; and the governor’s director of planning and budget, Sophia DiCaro. Cox publicly presented his budget priorities during a press conference on Thursday.

Realigning higher education in 2025

The governor’s $30.6 billion budget recommendation for the upcoming legislative session assigns $178.3 million for higher education, including $2.5 million to expand the capacity of Utah’s technical colleges and $22 million in performance-based funding to promote higher education initiatives that meet workforce needs.

While the governor’s budget recommendations do not indicate which policies the state Legislature are likely to make law, they do communicate his preferences. Cox’s budget priorities in the first year of his second term range from $144 million to eliminate state taxes on Social Security, to $130 million to improve school safety and $20 million to prepare nuclear reactor sites.

But some of the governor’s central focuses, like housing, immigration and higher education, don’t require large expenditures and don’t find a prominent place in his most recent budget proposal. These policy changes could actually save the state money, or at least put it to better use, according to Cox.

“We’re really good at creating new programs in higher ed; we’re not good at getting rid of old programs that probably have outlived their useful life or should not been created in the first place,” Cox said.

Last month, Schultz, R-Hooper, told the Deseret News, that if higher ed doesn’t produce the “right outcomes, the question has to be asked: ‘Do we still subsidize at the same level that we’ve been subsidizing at?’ I think you can make the argument that you don’t.”

But when Cox was asked about a possible 10% cut to higher education funding, he resisted framing it as university downsizing. Instead, he echoed the language of Adams, R-Layton, calling the budget changes to higher education a “reallocation,” where money will be redirected from canceled programs to new or expanded ones.

Bills outlining how programs will be reviewed are already in the works. Cox hopes this “reevaluation process” will give the entirely new Utah Board of Higher Education a major role in deciding which programs stay and which will go, depending on programs’ popularity, economic demand and return on investment.

Programs with few graduates or poor job placement will get extra scrutiny, high-industry-demand majors such as nursing and engineering, will get extra attention, including potentially fast-tracked bachelor degrees, the Deseret News has reported.

Part of the reason universities have strayed from their mission, Cox believes, is because the governing structure in higher education “is completely broken.” There will be bills this upcoming session that better define the chain of command between the university president, faculty senate, board of trustees, board of higher education and state government. Ultimately, Cox said, as public institutions, voters should have the final say over the direction of higher education.

“The people who are funding these universities have a say in what gets there. How do they have a say? They have a say through their elected representatives,” Cox said.

Food tax off the menu, Social Security tax back on

One of Cox’s most-touted achievements from his first four years in office is working with the Legislature to achieve $1.2 billion in tax cuts, including cutting the income tax rate from 4.95% to 4.55% and expanding tax credits.

During previous legislative sessions, lawmakers set aside $165 million for the elimination of the sales tax on food as part of a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution. After the amendment was voided, Cox proposed using these funds to cover the elimination of the state tax on Social Security benefits, which will cost an estimated $143.8 million every year.

Utah is one of just nine states that still taxes Social Security income for older residents. While the Social Security tax credit was expanded in 2022 and 2023, Cox says that completely doing away with the tax will provide upwards of $1,000 in tax relief to around 150,000 Utahns relying on Social Security, and their families.

“We want to focus a little more this legislative session on our seniors and helping them,” Cox said. “They’ve struggled as much through inflation, maybe more through inflation, than anybody else; those who are on a fixed income, who have not been able to keep up.”

Cox supports the long term goal of eliminating the state tax on individual income, he said — an objective shared by Adams in the state senate. But in order to join states like Texas, Florida and Nevada in abolishing state income tax, Utah would have to find another revenue source to replace it, whether its increased property taxes, retail taxes or something else.

Cox’s budget focuses on energy

In the final months of his first term, Cox announced a new initiative called “Operation Gigawatt” to double Utah’s energy production over the next 10 years. For the first time in decades, Utah is now consuming more power than it produces. As the fastest growing state in the nation, Cox believes Utah has to lead on innovative energy sources.

Cox’s budget proposal for FY2026 contains a recommendation of $4.3 million to support local research into geothermal energy and $20.4 million to identify locations for nuclear reactor construction, as well as develop the infrastructure and lay the permitting groundwork for new projects.

Utah is partnering with Idaho and Wyoming to share manpower and other resources to advance nuclear projects in the West, Cox said. And he is confident Utah’s congressional delegation and the incoming presidential administration will tackle energy regulations to remove obstacles preventing nuclear energy projects in the Beehive State.

“Now we have the potential for a wave of building. The permitting is the thing that stops us,” Cox said.

Utah lawmakers consider restricting cell phone use in schools

Whereas past years had a focus on water or housing, Cox said this year’s budget recommendation are focused on helping vulnerable populations, whether it’s seniors who depend on Social Security checks, the working class who have been hit hard by high energy costs, or Utah’s children.

The governor’s recommendations include $257.9 million targeted at families. A portion of this revenue would be used to expand the child tax credit for $2.1 million to include children under one, and $3 million to increase the number of child care facilities in Utah, Cox said.

But the majority of these funds, $130 million, would be used to implement recently passed legislation enhancing school safety measures. Cox hopes to set aside another $5.2 million to expand access to free school meals, $3.3 million to pay for school guardians across the state and $3.7 million to help schools manage cell phone use in class.

The budget also recommends $4.5 million for Meals on Wheels, $1.2 million for victim services, $18.8 million for homelessness alleviation and $11.5 million for opioid response efforts, including “investments for prevention, treatments, recovery efforts, and in our correctional facilities, and especially throughout rural Utah,” Henderson said.

While the budget proposal does not include large subsidies for affordable housing construction like last year, or increased law enforcement spending for criminal migrant deportations — which Cox recently signaled his support for — major legislation will be introduced to address these issues next session, Cox said.