Faculty members lined up Wednesday at the Capitol to defend the liberal arts, pleading for programs not be cut under a new set of “high-performing” metrics for schools that place value on job placement and high wages.
They argued that education should be more than just preparation for work. One pointed as an example to Albert Einstein and his love of the violin, which he often played when trying to work through complex scientific problems. And they spoke about how classes in literature and culture help all students learn how to think, write and be better citizens.
“This bill will throttle growth and opportunity for students,” said John Meisner, an assistant professor and director of accreditation at Southern Utah University, speaking personally and not on behalf of his school.
But despite the near-unanimous opposition during public comment, lawmakers in the Senate Education Committee moved the measure forward on a 6-1 vote, with the sole Democrat opposed. HB265 goes next to the full Senate where it is expected to pass final votes without any major hurdles. It has already passed the House, 63-9.
The bill is the big-ticket issue aimed at higher education this session.
It’s been run in conjunction with HB1, the base budget bill for higher education, which was approved earlier and has already been signed by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. Typically, base budget bills are a simple approval of the previous fiscal year’s budget for an area of the state’s operations. But this year, legislative leaders pushed for $60 million to be shifted away from Utah’s eight public colleges and universities. The University of Utah will see the largest portion of that at $19.6 million.
That money — a 10% cut to the funds for classroom instruction — was moved to a separate line item called “strategic reinvestment.”
HB265 provides for how schools can get their share of the money back, only after showing that it will be reallocated for high-demand and high-wage majors. The state defined those programs in a recent audit, which also instructed university presidents to cut “inefficient” programs with low enrollment and little impact on the state’s workforce.
“Higher education needs to be responsive to change in industry and to student needs,” said Rep. Karen Peterson, R-Clinton, who is sponsoring the bill.
But the measure has ignited concerns since it was first mentioned by legislative leadership last fall. Many professors here have worried that judging programs based on market terms — earnings, placement, demand — will disadvantage liberal arts majors that can’t always stack up in those measurements.
Those degrees, though, professors have said, provide other less tangible benefits to a student and their community.
“A degree goes beyond the job you get when you graduate,” said Sean Crossland, an assistant professor of higher education leadership at Utah Valley University, who was speaking for the American Federation of Teachers’ Utah College Council, a union that represents higher education faculty, professional staff and graduate employees.
Crystal Young, a lobbyist and the former executive director of the Utah Cultural Alliance, urged lawmakers to hold the bill until it could be updated and include protections for programs like art and writing. She majored in music at Brigham Young University, she said, and started a club focused on the many jobs people in those fields can get.
She questioned the metrics and what numbers can actually show. “Data without a goal on the success we’re measuring is just data,” she said.
Joseph Silverzweig, a member of the Utah Education Association, brought up the example of Einstein. He mentioned how the famous physicist also depended on the work of lesser-known scientists before him.
“The universe of education is not always a straight line,” Silverzweig said.
“Every degree supports the economy in some way,” added Robert Schmidt, a former adjunct faculty member at Utah Tech University and now president of the Utah Music Educators Association.
They were joined by Sen. John Johnson, R-North Ogden, and Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, who have both voiced concerns with the bill and the possible threat they believe HB265 poses to arts, humanities and social science programs in higher education.
Riebe said she would like the bill to spell out more involvement with university and college presidents when setting the metrics that will be used to ultimately make the cuts and reallocations. Others who spoke during public comment said faculty and students should also have a say.
Currently, that task has been set for the Utah Board of Higher Education, whose members are appointed by the governor. Geoff Landward, the commissioner over higher education for the state, repeated his goals for that process Wednesday.
He said the board will create more guidance for schools that includes salaries and job placement, along with graduation rates, enrollment rates, student interest and the impact of a program — both for the state’s job needs and the value to a community. There will be flexibility, he said, so each college and university can evaluate programs based on what works best for their institution. But it will be a transparent process and all decisions “justifiable,” he said.
Landward also reiterated that he doesn’t want the liberal arts to be eliminated. Many employers, he said, have been specifically asking the state’s institutions to graduate students with better communication and people skills. Those are often developed, he said, in a student’s required general education coursework that includes the arts and humanities.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sen. John Johnson, R-North Ogden, at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.
But Johnson said using workforce alignment to evaluate a university education is dangerous.
“I believe this doesn’t just take a mathematical formula,” he said. “… I look back at my education, and some of the most valuable things I learned were from philosophers, from my French literature class, from my classes in the humanities and the social sciences.”
He said he would support HB265 Wednesday to get it out of committee because the money has already been shifted in the budget bill and schools need guidance on how to earn it back. But he won’t vote for the measure on the Senate floor, Johnson added, unless there are changes.
Johnson, who is an emeritus professor at Utah State University, said he wants the bill to specifically enshrine that it is not an attack on liberal arts, and that a university education is different from the more job-focused certification of a technical college.
