Many departments and organizations at Wichita State University face large budget cuts due to a $900,000 shortfall, which stems from a decrease in full-time enrollment. The Commission is not recommending an increase to student fees next year.
The budget shortfall comes after the university reported “record-breaking” enrollment in the fall.
The Student Government Association’s Student Fee Commission met Friday to deliberate and set recommendations for proposed cuts to multiple entities, following two days of hearings and hours of deliberations. No program or organization received an increase in funding, and — if the Commission’s budget is approved — most will receive at least a 5% decrease.
During deliberations, commissioners continually mentioned one idea for helping determine where to make cuts.
“We really need to be thinking about which of these items have the broadest impact and greatest impact on our students,” Student Body President and Commissioner Kylee Hower said.
Budget and enrollment
On Wednesday and Thursday, student-fee-funded campus groups and entities presented to the Student Fee Commission to propose their recommended budgets for fiscal year 2026. The Commission meets annually for these hearings, with different organizations going up for review on a rotating cycle.
Not every group meets each year, but due to the financial shortfall, groups both in and out of this year’s funding cycle were asked to present to the Commission. Even those not up for review received an email Monday asking them to create reports on how a 5%, 8% and 10% cut to their budget would impact them.
While the Commission was aware of this year’s budget shortfall, they learned of an additional shortfall in fiscal year 2025’s budget on Friday morning. The budget was inflated by about $507,000.
David Miller, the university’s interim senior vice president for administration, finance and operations, said part of the reason the 2025 budget was inaccurate was due to an incorrectly added program to the university’s data sets for headcount enrollment.
Between 2024 and 2025, the university changed how the Teacher Apprentice Program was classified in WSU’s banner system.
“When that occurred, the program that captures the data set, the headcount information that’s used to do the revenue estimate, inadvertently included the TAP students within those headcount numbers,” Miller said.
The university’s financial system counted TAP students as full-time equivalent fee paying students, although they do not pay the same amount as most full-time students.
Miller said this “inflated the revenue estimates in last year’s budget.”
But Gabriel Fonseca, Student Government Association adviser, suggested commissioners solely focus on the 2026 budget shortfall when proceeding with budget cuts for next year.
“Historically, when we deal with budget shortfalls of cash in a fiscal year, typically, it’s the next session that has to address it because we would normally receive that information around April May-ish when the new (SGA) session has been seated,” Fonseca said. “The difference this year is that we know this information (2025 budget shortfall) way ahead of time. And so while we look at what we’re addressing today, ultimately the objective is to produce a (20)26 budget for the fiscal year.”
Fonseca said there are ways to address the 2025 budget shortfall after producing a 2026 budget.
Major cuts
Only a few departments and organizations escaped student fee budget cuts, but several could lose all funding they receive from the fund in fiscal year 2026. The current cuts are contingent on the budget being accepted by SGA, WSU and the Kansas Board of Regents.
When grappling with the 2026 budget, the Commission aimed to make a balanced budget that would not increase how much students pay in fees while also not adversely affecting students’ well-being and engagement on campus.
Many of the groups below also receive other sources of funding outside of student fee money.
The Child Development Center was already slated for a $50,000 decrease going into fiscal year 2026. With the cut proposed by the Commission Friday, the center will receive $231,469.
The Commission considered further cutting the group’s funding, but a Student Government bill requires a three-year downtrend in government funding, which would not allow for this. Next year funding will also have to decrease another $50,000 because of the bill.
The Child Development Center serves a limited number of students and parents on campus. According to CDC Director Jillian Hoefer, the center only has six children of current students, while there were 18 last year. The drop required it to raise its tuition costs.
“In their presentation, they were clear that their program is dying,” Speaker of the Senate Victoria Owens said. “… Do we continue funneling money into a program that is not sustainable in their current business model that it is utilizing because they consistently have to raise tuition dollars, which are, personally, a really high amount?”
The Cultural Ambassador Program requested $10,000 in student fees for scholarship funding. Last year, it received $10,000. The program serves eight students.
Commissioners voted to cut the group’s student fee budget to $0.
Student Body Treasurer Jia Wen Wang said she talked to a past ambassador of the program, who said it had little impact on international students because most of the discussions and activities were surface level, despite its mission to bring cultural awareness to campus.
“This is the only reason why I am comfortable cutting them down to $0,” Wang said.
Additionally, Wang said the Ambassadors for Diversity and Inclusion organization serves a similar purpose to the Cultural Ambassador Program, which could fill in the gap for the defunded group.
Many commissioners said their line of thinking was to place as fair as possible cuts on similar services, such as scholarships.
The Historically Underrepresented Scholarship received $50,000 in 2025 and asked for $70,000 for next year. The Commission agreed on $30,000.
The SGA Scholarships and Hardship Fund was also reduced from $34,500 to $30,000. The WSU Student of the Year Scholarship was cut from $2,430 to $0.
“If we’re going to cut from underrepresented students (and) from community service, we have to cut from this as well,” Hower said about the Student of the Year Scholarship.
Wichita State’s esports program also took a hit. Esports has two student-fee funded budgets, a scholarship and varsity fund. Esports requested $95,000 for its scholarships, a $70,000 increase from last year. The scholarship fund was allocated $10,000.
Esports also requested $155,440 for its varsity team, a few thousand dollar increase from last year. Ultimately, the Commission dramatically cut the budget to $40,000.
Commissioner Andrew Hatch said he recognizes Esports is an up-and-coming sport but said there’s no way to justify the additional dollar when every organization is receiving cuts.
“We have to make significant cuts, but they’ve doubled in size, so cutting them by more than 50% is a little rough,” Hatch said.
The Tilford Commission was reduced from $10,054 to $0 as well. During the group’s student fee hearing, it was discovered that the report included inaccurate numbers.
“I also had a lot of concerns with the budget breakdown presentation,” Student Body Vice President Matthew Phan said. “And I had more questions than answers after the presentation.”
Similar to the Tilford Commission, Student Affairs’ Assessment and Retention unit would also receive $0 under this budget. Previously, it received nearly $39,000.
Commissioners said they felt that the unit’s services are redundant and it was also not clear what they were spending their funds on.
ShockerStrengths Initiative, a group that aims to empower students through skill building, joined the student fee process this year, requesting $40,000. They had not previously received student fee money, so the Commission voted to allocate $0. The group’s expenses will likely be supported by orientation fees or will be absorbed by campus partners.
The debate team also took a significant funding hit. Last fiscal year, the team received $25,000. After requesting $25,000 again, the group was allotted $10,000.
The Rhatigan Student Center and Student Engagement & Belonging will also receive 8% decreases to their funding. Staff from both entities expressed that they could absorb the loss with no student staffing cuts.
The RSC will receive around $2.6 million student fee money, after receiving around $2.9 million last year.
SEB requested around $1.6 million but will only receive around $1.5 million. Last year, the department received nearly $1.5 million.
Other cuts include a 10% cut to SGA’s Office Expenditures, a 2% decrease to Campus Recreation, and a 2% decrease to the Student Health Services.
Other cuts
Several organizations, departments and scholarships took no to nearly no funding cuts. Some took substantial hits but received other funds outside of student fees.
Non-Traditional Student Scholarship
- FY 2025: $30,000
- FY 2026: $25,000
Study Abroad Scholarship Fund
- FY 2025: $10,000
- FY 2026: $9,000
Ulrich Museum of Art
- FY 2025: $8,500
- FY 2026: $5,000
Multicultural Student Mentoring Program
- FY 2025: $35,000
- FY 2026: $30,000
Graduate Student Programs
- FY 2025: $13,026
- FY 2026: $10,000
Disability Support Services
- FY2025: $8000
- FY 2026: $8000
Student Health Services
- FY 2025: $1,132,967
- FY 2026: $1,110,308
The Sunflower
- FY 2025: $150,796
- FY 2026: $150,796
The Sunflower Technology Reserve
- FY 2025: $5,095
- FY 2026: $0
College Of Fine Arts Programming
- FY 2025: $50,000
- FY 2026: $50,000
HALA Scholarship for Community Service
- FY 2025: $15,000
- FY 2026: $15,000
Student Outreach Services
- FY 2025: 57,664
- FY 2026: 57,664
Graduate Student Scholarship Program
- FY 2025: $10,000
- FY 2026: $9,000
McNair Graduate Student Scholarship
- FY 2025: $8,000
- FY 2025: $8,000
Health, Outreach, Prevention and Education (HOPE) Services
- FY 2025: $30,995
- FY 2026: $30,995
Counseling and Psychological Services
- FY 2025: $444,570
- FY 2026: $444,570
Office of Student Accommodations And Testing
- FY 2025: $10,107
- FY 2026: $10,107
Student Organization Fund
- FY 2025: $67,500
- FY 2026: $67,500
Balancing the budget
To balance the budget, the Commission made the final decision to reduce the amount SGA has in its Special Projects and Capital Fund, which the Student Senate allowed them to do earlier this week. Hower said the fund is a luxury and given the budget deficit, it must be utilized. The fund went from around $1.8 million to around $1.5 million.
“While I recognize the importance of the Special Projects fund as a tool for Student Government Association to utilize for projects, I also think that at this point we have cut so many departments and so many other EOFs (Educational Opportunity Fund), that to be honest, we’re probably going to see these departments come back and ask for this anyway,” Wang said. “I don’t think it’s fair to ask all these departments and EOFS to be cut (if) we’re not willing to cut our own SGA Special Projects & Capital Fund.”
The Commission could run into an issue where their budget is rejected by SGA’s Supreme Court, though. SGA’s bylaws have rules about how the special fund may be used that are open to interpretation. While the Commission decided their interpretation allows them to spend the fund, it could be interpreted differently by the court.
If the court has no issue with the expenditure, SGA won’t have to increase student fees for next year.
Next steps
The Commission’s recommendation will go to the Student Senate to vote on in their next meeting on Wednesday, March 12. After that, it must be approved by Hower, WSU President Richard Muma, and finally, the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees higher education in the state.
The deliberations process can be viewed on SGA’s YouTube channel.
The next Senate meeting will be Wednesday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rhatigan Student Center, room 233. Groups impacted by the suggested cuts, and any other member of the public, can speak in public forum at the meeting.
Editor’s note: One of the writers of this story, Mia Hennen, presented to the Student Fee Commission on Thursday, March 6, to share what a 5% to 10% budget cut would look like to The Sunflower.
