SPOKANE, Wash. — Washington State University is preparing for big losses in state and federal funding for this upcoming year.
On Monday, WSU’s Board of Regents met to discuss the future of the university in the face of significant cuts by the Trump Administration and the state.
The University said it has already lost $6 million in federal grants from USAID and the Department of Education, and that Governor Bob Ferguson plans to cut $20 million in state funding.
“We’re talking about an absolutely massive budgetary challenge that no one predicted,” WSU Provost Chris Riley-Tillman said.
The Board said they expect the university to lose around $20 million in federal funding because of changes to federal grants that are under stop-work orders, or won’t be reimbursed at the same rate as WSU negotiated with the federal government.
“This is basically this administration saying ‘We’re just going to do this, we don’t care what congress says,’ I think that’s how these things are coming out from Washington D.C. and the impacts are going to be real,” said Glynda Becker Fenter, Vice President of External Affairs at WSU.
The Board of Regents said it is also considering what the future could hold if the DOE is shut down entirely.
“Universities that are particularly first-gen students, Pell-eligible students, which is our entire focus as a land-grant university, will be differentially, much more impacted by this,” Tillman said.
Pell grants are expected to be protected from any cuts to the DOE, according to the board.
The board also said the Range Community Clinic at WSU’s Spokane Campus is projected to lose around $6 million.
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