UW’s Budget Cuts Aren’t Enough

On January 13, 2026, the Wyoming Legislature’s most powerful body—the Joint Appropriations Committee—voted to cut and withhold nearly $61 million from the University of Wyoming’s recommended budget.

News of the cuts sent shockwaves through the Cowboy State. Long unchallenged by state lawmakers and comfortable in their ivory tower, UW’s leadership had grown accustomed to getting whatever they wanted. The new year, however, brought a far colder awakening.

The sweeping total of cuts includes $40 million from the university’s state block grant, $12.5 million from matching donations or grants, $6 million from athletics programs, and nearly $1.7 million from Wyoming Public Media’s share of the block grant, among other reductions.

Long unchallenged by state lawmakers, UW’s leadership had grown accustomed to getting whatever they wanted. As soon as UW’s leadership didn’t get what they wanted, dozens of media outlets began publishing alarmist reports and op-eds warning that the budget cuts would damage the state’s economic growth, lead to possible layoffs, and inflict long-term harm on younger generations of Wyomingites.

The Chronicle of Higher Education was among these outlets, publishing “This State Has Plenty of Money. It’s Weighing Cuts to Its Only Public University Anyway,” which framed the budget issue largely as a mere funding dispute and only briefly noted lawmakers’ concerns about DEI. The media frenzy also prompted University of Wyoming president Ed Seidel to address the cuts—an appearance heralded by local progressive outlets.

It is striking to see the amount of media adulation given to President Seidel. “Ed Seidel has historically avoided wading into the day-to-day affairs of the Wyoming Legislature. But a proposal to slash UW’s recommended block grant by $40 million—a move that could result in job losses—pushed him to break his typical silence,” wrote Maya Shimizu Harris of WyoFile, a left-leaning media organization.

It is striking to see the amount of media adulation given to President Seidel, who received a vote of “no confidence” from the faculty senate last year and whose leadership was formally described in the resolution as “unacceptable.” That resolution further noted that “the president’s lack of leadership and loss of faculty trust has resulted in significant impacts on campus.”

All of this comes as Seidel is set to step down on June 30, 2026, at the end of his contract. In any other workplace, would anyone seriously treat as authoritative the word of an employee who has already given his two-week notice?

As Cowboy State Daily reported last month, University of Wyoming student leaders rushed to support President Seidel by protesting the proposed budget cuts, insisting that students across campus are organizing ahead of the Feb. 9 legislative session. One student told the site that the student government is preparing a resolution opposing the cuts, a move that has attracted sponsorship from several student organizations (many of them explicitly left-leaning).

President Seidel was far less vocal during his testimony before the Joint Appropriations Committee. When pressed by legislators on how an eco-feminism course would help students who want to stay and work in Wyoming, Seidel replied, “I do not have an answer to that question”—an odd admission from a university leader who, in his own words, wakes up every morning thinking about how to keep students in Wyoming.

This irony offers a glimpse into deeper structural problems at the University of Wyoming. In 2024, the Wyoming Legislature cut the university’s block grant and barred it from using those funds to support its DEI office, which was subsequently closed. Lawmakers were explicit about their opposition to funding DEI-related programs and initiatives. The university’s response, however, was largely cosmetic: surface-level reforms and rebranding. The School of Culture, Gender & Social Justice, for example, was renamed the Department of American Cultural Studies.

And it appears the story does not end there. The University of Wyoming shows clear signs of serious mismanagement. Enrollment has declined year over year since 2015. In 2023, UW trustees approved a $1.5-million “emergency” recruitment campaign that ultimately produced no meaningful results. Last fall, UW enrolled roughly 2,900 fewer students than it did a decade ago—with five of those 10 years coming under President Seidel’s leadership.

At the same time, the university’s athletic department requested an additional $6 million over the next two years, a request the legislature denied. UW competes in the Mountain West Conference, and a review of the 2026 budgets of peer institutions suggests UW’s athletics spending is already about average. Given UW football head coach Jay Sawvel’s 7-17 record in his first two seasons, along with the program’s conference record of 77-128 (a 37.5-percent winning percentage), it is fair to ask whether pouring more money into the program is a wise investment.

These budget cuts should mark the beginning of serious, structural higher-education reform in the Cowboy State. While much of the liberal media has portrayed these cuts as unreasonable or purely political, the reality looks very different. Outside the academic ivory tower, business executives who rack up losses and fail to deliver results are typically held accountable—and are often shown the door. That is precisely the message the Wyoming Legislature, the University of Wyoming’s largest funder, is sending: Return to your founding mission, live within your means, and align the institution with the state’s workforce needs, not the ideological requirements of progressive race-and-gender pioneers.

These budget cuts should not be an end in themselves. They should mark the beginning of serious, structural higher-education reform in the Cowboy State. In the years ahead, the Wyoming Legislature must fully uproot DEI courses and programs, overhaul general-education requirements by refocusing them on Western civilization, cut administrative bloat, push for a syllabus-transparency policy, and—above all—revive the founding mission of the University of Wyoming.

Jovan Tripkovic is communications manager at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.