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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Hard things lead to adaptation': Utah's colleges on what they'll cut, add following state pressure
Friday's Utah Board of Higher Education meeting offered telling glimpses into the academic future of the state's public colleges and universities. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed House Bill 265 — the so-called 'strategic reinvestment' initiative requiring Utah's eight public colleges and universities to reallocate millions of dollars to programs determined to be of highest value to both students and Utah's economy. On Friday, representatives from the state's eight degree-granting public schools presented their strategic reinvestment plans to the board. There's much on the line. If the schools' respective plans are approved by the Board of Higher Education and, in the coming months, by the Legislature, they can reclaim the 10% of their annual budget that was cut during the recent legislative session. Each of Utah's schools are, of course, unique in size, funding and mission. Their respective reinvestment plans reflect those differences. But there were shared similarities Friday. First, the institutional changes demanded by HB265 certainly exact some pain. Jobs, academic programs and colleges are being cut to reinvest in other areas. But higher education leaders also said the legislation presents opportunities to decide how to best serve the state's students — professionally and personally — in an ever-evolving world. A statement Friday from University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks to a 'moment of reinvention' in higher education: 'My support for these moves is not only about legislative compliance and fiscal responsibility — it is also a reflection of my commitment to the vision of where the University of Utah needs to go to be an impact university," Randall said. The state-imposed reallocation/reinvestment plans will occur over a three-year period. At least 30% of the reallocated dollars must be deployed by each school in fiscal year 2026. At least 70% in 2027. And 100% in 2028. Here are highlights of each school's Strategic Reinvestment Plan presentations: Celebrating its 175th anniversary this year, the University of Utah has a student body of almost 37,000. The state's flagship institution of higher learning has the largest HB265 reallocation burden: More than $19.5 million. The University of Utah's strategic reinvestment plan remains a work in progress. The school is still finalizing its reallocation targets for fiscal years 2027 and 2028 — 'Phase 2' and 'Phase 3.' The board on Friday approved the school's reinvestment plan, conditional on the institution returning by September with sufficient details. Randall said the time extension is needed because of the volatility facing 'Research 1' universities due to changes implemented by the Trump administration. On a daily basis, 'there are tens of millions of dollars of grants moving back and forth,' he said. 'Those actually affect staffing decisions and faculty decisions. So we are grateful that you've allowed us some time to let some of those things settle down.' The University of Utah's 'Phase 1' reinvestment plan includes reallocation investments in engineering; advancing responsible AI and biotechnology; boosting programs that address the critical nursing shortage; and strengthening General Education by focusing on civic responsibility and building durable skills such as critical thinking and conflict resolution. The University's 'Phase 1' disinvestments will come largely by implementing improved efficiencies in administration and administrative support areas. Meanwhile, scores of courses and programs at the University of Utah are being sunset across a variety of colleges — including graduate programs in educational psychology, bioengineering, modern dance, Middle East Studies, sociology/criminology and neurobiology. Looking forward, Randall said the school's finalized reinvestment plan will look at maximizing shared services opportunities while also examining program and college redesigns and early retirement opportunities for employees. The state's sole land-grant university with a statewide enrollment of almost 29,000, USU is required by HB265 to reallocate approximately $12.6 million. School leaders are concentrating their changes on three broad categories: Technologies and Careers for the Future (i.e., addressing critical needs in engineering, artificial intelligence, computing, and analytics); Health and Wellbeing Workforce; and improving Student Access, Success & Outcomes. Proposed reallocations include new faculty positions in AI and data science, a new school of computing, a new chemical engineering program and the expansion of the school's aviation program. In health care, USU proposes to expand mental health and well-being programs and its nursing program — while creating a new College of Health and Human Sciences and a new Doctor of Physical Therapy program. Investments are also planned in Student Success Support programming and USU's Online Enterprise. USU's proposed plan does include significant personnel costs. Approximately 120 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) positions are slated for elimination — including positions in school administration, staff and faculty. (Note: FTEs do not represent, number-to-number, full-time employees.) Several USU programs, degrees and certificates are expected to be discontinued — including bachelor's degrees in American Studies, agriculture communication, deaf education; master's degrees in financial economics, fitness promotion; and an associate's degree in theatre offered at the school's Price, Utah, campus. USU's Interim President Alan Smith aptly noted the mix of challenges and opportunities offered by HB265. 'Hard things,' he said, 'lead to adaptation.' The state's largest community college with an enrollment of almost 25,000 students, SLCC is required by HB265 to reallocate approximately $5.2 million. SLCC is focusing on three 'major outcomes' in support of the bill's goals to align funding to evolving student and workforce needs: 1 - Reinvesting in workforce and high-demand transfer programs — including over $2 million reinvested in technical programs, almost $1 million in the Gail Miller Business School and $586,000 in the School of Health Sciences. 2 - Reducing administrative overhead costs to reinvest in instruction programs by, in part, eliminating five administrator positions and through consolidation. 3 – And centering student outcomes in the decision-making process — prompting almost $600,000 in additional reductions that went beyond HB265's budget reduction requirements. SLCC's proposal would result in decreasing the number of instructional offerings from 195 to 147 total certificate and degree programs, while also consolidating the School of Arts, Communication & Media. The changes are expected to impact 50 full-time and part-time employees. Fifteen are vacant positions — 35 are slated for layoffs. Many employees impacted by layoffs will have opportunities to transfer to another position at the school — or pursue a retirement option, according to the school. Five new SLCC faculty positions will be added, through reinvestment. Almost 5,000 students are pursuing higher education opportunities at Snow College. The Ephraim-based community college is required by HB265 to reallocate $1.7 million over the next three years. Plan highlights include expanding the school's prison education program, the elementary education program, the respiratory therapy program — and the creation of several new programs, including Pre-Architecture & Drafting, Strategic Communication and Public Relations, Commercial Driver's License and Rural Entrepreneurship. Additionally, there are plans for 12 'reinvested' positions in the works. Meanwhile, several academic programs are slated for disinvestment — including French, Italian and Media Studies. There will be 11 jobs eliminated — including positions in information technology and student affairs. However, there were no involuntary separations or forced layoffs. One vice president position was eliminated at Snow. Located in St. George, Utah Tech University has enjoyed steady enrollment growth in recent years. Today's UT student body is over 11,000. HB265 requires UT to reallocate $2.5 million over the course of its implementation. UT's plan aims to meet workforce demands, while increasing enrollment — including adding 19 faculty and instructional staff positions in high-demand areas such as business, engineering, psychology, health sciences and digital media programs. The school also plans to add an Associate Dean for Arts. Reductions are being made, in part, by eliminating several staff, faculty and administrative positions — including the school's Executive Director of Strategic Partnerships, one Spanish Education and one Theater Directing faculty member; and one school dean and five administrative support positions. The direction of HB265, said newly installed president Shane Smeed, helps UT 'strengthen and accelerate UT's pursuit of polytechnic mission and value.' Home to almost 14,000 students, SUU is required to reallocate $3.1 million. The school's plan focuses primarily on Utah's workforce needs and identifying emerging student opportunities. Multiple faculty positions, for example, are being added to the school's business, STEM, health care, and innovative tech programs. Several new positions are also being created to enhance student support as they prepare for careers. Meanwhile, 25 positions are being eliminated in several fields — including chemistry, biology, history and math. Twenty-four academic programs are being eliminated. Majors slated for elimination include Philosophy, French, French Education and Art History. The Arts Administration (face-to-face) and Athletic Training master's programs are also being cut. Several associate degree programs — including many which were already slated for eventual elimination — are also being dropped. Also, SUU's College of Engineering & Computational Sciences will be combined with the College of Natural Sciences. 'This has been a good thing to get us looking to the future,' said SUU President Mindy Benson. Weber State University, which has experienced record growth in recent years, enrolls approximately 27,000 students. The Ogden institution is required by HB265 to reallocate approximately $6.7 million. Forty-nine positions are being cut: 11 administrative positions, 10 staff positions and 28 salaried faculty — with most of the faculty cuts coming from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities. Several administrative slots are also being reduced — including the school's Assistant Vice President for Regional Partnerships and the executive director for Academic Support Centers & Programs. Meanwhile, dozens of majors, certificates and minors are being eliminated — including majors in Applied Physics, Dance Education, Geography, German and Computer Science Teaching. Reallocation highlights at WSU include more than $800,000 going towards academic advising support; $685,000 for high need health profession areas; more than $2.6 million to support, in part, the development of sub-120 hour degree programs; initiatives to enhance students' academic experiences; and development of new credentials aligning with Talent Ready Utah Occupational Priority List. WSU also plans to establish a new associate dean position within the Dumke College of Health Professions, specifically focused on nursing. The state's largest university with an enrollment of almost 47,000 students, UVU is required by the state to reallocate approximately $8.9 million. During their presentation Friday, UVU leaders say they have been implementing efficiency-focused decisions long before HB265 — reducing, in recent years, a number of academic schools/colleges and discontinuing the English Language Learning Program. And last October, the school implemented a campus-wide hiring freeze to manage budgets. Still, this year's Legislative actions are taking a toll at the Orem institution. Forty-five employee positions are being eliminated. Thirteen of those jobs were already vacant. Meanwhile, several specific academic programs are slated for cuts — including a specialized associate's degree in business; certificates in woodworking/cabinetry and administrative information support; and a nursing education Master's degree. Expenditures are also being reduced in UVU's Academic Affairs departments — including the Innovation Academy and Program Assessment budgets. Other highlighted areas of UVU's reinvestment plan include: Expanding resources for emerging occupations such as AI. Increasing engineering-related initiatives in mechanical engineering, computer science and IT. Expanding health and wellness opportunities in occupational therapy and behavioral health. And further investing in General Education to develop critical thinking, communication and durable skills.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion: Offering college credits for voluntary service makes sense
Few things have a greater effect on a young person's life than to sacrifice time as a volunteer for a higher cause. The University of Utah understands this, and its new program to reward such efforts with college credit, announced to us last week by President Taylor Randall, should be applauded. The university will begin offering up to 12 credit hours to students who can demonstrate they have gained valuable experience through voluntary service off campus. This would include service with the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps, any type of humanitarian or community service, a stint in the military, or religious missionary service. The university said credit will be awarded 'based on the type and duration' of this service and on a case-by-case basis. This is a policy that redefines, in a positive way, a university's role in the community it serves. It makes sense, especially in a state that has been consistently ranked as a national leader in fostering the spirit of volunteerism. One such ranking, conducted by AmeriCorps, found that Utah led the nation with a 68.2% 'informal helping rate.' Informal helping, the report said, consists of people helping 'their neighbors informally with tasks like running errands or watching each other's children …' The national rate was 54%. But the state's formal volunteer rate, defined as helping through formal organizations, also led the nation at 46.6%. Voluntary service blesses communities and alleviates the burdens of governments at all levels. The report said 1.2 million Utahns volunteered formally, while 1.7 million did so informally in 2023, the most recent year studied. As the website puts it, 'Volunteers will often engage in events and programs that help address social issues such as homelessness, poverty, or lack of proper education systems. Communities will feel more connected if they are able to make changes to these important social issues. Volunteers that assist the most underserved members of the community also positively impact upward mobility.' In addition to blessing communities, the volunteer is often changed by his or her own acts of service. That is certainly the case with young people who enter military service, and it definitely describes those who commit a portion of their lives to full-time missionary service. The university's press release quoted Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a General Authority Seventy and the commissioner of the Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 'Our young adults who serve missions come home more mature and capable and ready to continue investing and contributing to their communities,' he said. The leadership training and work ethic instilled through formal voluntary service is difficult to duplicate in any other form, and it adds immeasurable long-term benefits to the community being served. University officials said voluntary experience will be rewarded even if it took place before 2025. In addition, students will still be eligible for the current 16 credit hours for foreign language mastery, which would be applied on top of the new 12 credit hour award for service. University President Randall told the Deseret News Editorial Board he hopes to make the campus more attractive to Latter-day Saints. In the process, however, the new program will also make a bold statement as to what the university values and honors in its students. That message will go far beyond missionary service, sending the signal that formal voluntary service of any kind ought to be a foundational part of a student's broad educational experience. Mitzi Montoya, the school's provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said the university wants to be a place where experiential learning is prioritized. The beauty of that policy is that experiential learning seldom ends with one experience. It often blossoms into a lifetime of service to others, and that will reverberate for years in immeasurable ways.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
With tight deadline, Utah universities scramble to cut 10% of budget for courses
University of Utah President Taylor Randall delivers a speech at the school's commencement ceremony on May 2, 2024. (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch) With Utah public universities preparing to make cuts on what may be considered low-performing programs to comply with a new state law, different institutions are quickly making plans to merge colleges, and to lay off some of their staff. This year the Utah Legislature approved HB265, giving instructions to the Utah Board of Higher Education to cut 10% of budgets for courses and switch that funding from 'underperforming programs' to degrees that may have waitlists. That left universities scrambling to meet the state-imposed deadlines starting with a first draft of the plans due on May 9 to the Utah Board of Higher Education. While that's the initial deadline, the schools have three years to implement their plans in order to receive the ongoing total of $60 million retained by the state in a 'strategic reinvestment account' meant to be spent on high-demand programs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Salt Lake Community College, which has to cut $5.2 million to invest in other areas, is gathering leaders at the institution to evaluate their instructional budget considering factors such as completion time, outcomes and workforce demand, said Jason Pickavance, interim provost for the office of Academic Affairs at the college. Budget bills targeting 'underperforming' university programs press forward Reallocations within schools weren't invented with the bill, Pickavance said. They are a routine exercise the college goes through to update its curriculum and keep up with what's needed in the workforce. Already having a system in place is what may make this process even more challenging, he added, since programs have already been streamlined. 'One of the things I've done to make the exercise more achievable is I've extended it to non-instructional areas of Academic Affairs,' Pickavance said. Those areas include a curriculum office, testing services, a library and an e-learning office. 'One of the charges to the deans and the associate provosts is to consider not just looking at instruction, but thinking about how they might consolidate staff or administration in their area.' That means that as part of the reallocation process, there could be layoffs to decrease the number of academic administrators — which include associate deans, directors, deans and associate provosts. Other staff lines would also be consolidated. As for programs, that's still under consideration since their effectiveness evaluation is more nuanced than simple enrollment and graduation metrics. SLCC's dental hygiene program, for example, is a small program that admits about 25 students per cohort, he said. But that's partly because there's a fixed number of stations where instructors can teach. So, that program, despite its demand and success won't be getting larger anytime soon. 'They graduate every one of those students, and every one of those students goes and gets a job,' Pickavance said. 'So that program, to me, is a very small, but high performing program.' But programs like, say, psychology, which has hundreds of students a year, don't have those kinds of equipment constraints and are designed to transfer students to other institutions, and not necessarily to get them directly in the workforce. 'The technical challenges we came up with as we were thinking about 'how do we want to evaluate programs?' is that programs are very varied in their purpose and in their scope,' he said. 'And you really want to think about is a program accomplishing what it's intending to accomplish, not holding a program to some rigid one-size-fits-all metric.' So far, it has been an anxiety-inducing process, Pickavance said. While the college is working hard to be responsive and agile while managing taxpayer dollars, they are also trying to approach this from a humane perspective. 'We're talking about staff or faculty, and I expect there will be some people that we have to let go,' he said. 'I hope it's minimal, and I hope that we're really thinking carefully about, if we do have to discontinue, is there another spot in the college that we can find a space for them?' Utah State University, which must cut $12.5 million as part of the state's reallocation project, is making two college mergers. The first will combine the Caine College of the Arts, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the College of Science, resulting in a new college 'that aligns with common arts and sciences models nationally,' Alan Smith, interim president of USU said in an update. Joe Ward, the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences is set to lead it. The second will be a merger of the S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources and the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences into a new school 'that aligns with those found at several thriving land-grant institutions,' Smith wrote. A dean of this new college is still to be determined. 'The restructuring of these colleges will be accompanied by department consolidations, moves, and reconfigurations that strengthen alignment and cohesion,' Smith said. 'These changes will likely impact downstream programs, initiatives, and centers or institutes.' At the end of March, Smith wrote in another message that 'there will be no way to avoid job cuts,' since personnel are the primary cost of the institution, offering faculty and staff to apply for a 'voluntary separation incentive plan,' with cash incentives depending on age and years of service. Under the new bill the university may also adopt policies that supersede other institutional policies to reach the goals, Smith wrote. So, 'existing policies tied to curricular changes, tenured roles, and other areas will not be applied when implementing our HB 265 plan.' The University of Utah saw this coming, Mitzi Montoya, senior vice president for Academic Affairs, said in a newsletter. In early 2024, the Utah System of Higher Education received an ongoing 1.5% cut in its budgets beginning this summer and heard that more could come in 2025, so the university had already anticipated a 10% reduction. To save the $19.7 million the U. has to reallocate, each academic unit will meet to develop plans before the initial draft deadline coming up in May, Montoya said in an Academic Senate meeting on April 7. 'We're focusing particular support on working with the deans that have programs that might be flagged as lower enrollment,' Montoya said in the meeting. 'The task is to work on developing explanations of the data, potentially growing enrollment, or making whatever changes may need to happen from a curricular standpoint.' Audit: Could cutting low-performing college programs help Utah's academic outlook? Programs that have fewer than 40 students enrolled are to be considered 'low enrollment,' a benchmark also used by the Utah System of Higher Education. Some of the low enrollment but high impact programs that may be affected by the reallocations are mining engineering, metallurgical engineering and geological engineering. 'We are also using our data to build a picture of the contributions of our smaller programs,' Montoya wrote in the newsletter. 'We can't know what the outcome of this process will be, but we do know that we will continue to be committed to the full swath of disciplines that make an R1 institution such as ours strong and contribute to research advancement.' One of the goals at the state's flagship university is also to invest to support student growth, Montoya said in the meeting. She noted that some areas where lawmakers would like to see growth are accounting, data science and nursing, all highlighted in the audit that inspired HB265. With looming federal cuts, the university is also bracing for changes in its research department, guiding researchers to move with urgency, and 'aligning discovery with national priorities,' according to a message from Erin Rothwell, the U.'s vice president for Research. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Huntsman Cancer Institute breaks ground on new $400M Utah County cancer center
VINEYARD, Utah () — University of Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute broke ground on its second campus on Tuesday, celebrating how the $400 million project will improve access to care for Utah County cancer patients. Several hundreds of people attended the groundbreaking ceremony, with politicians, students, clinicians, scientists, and community members present. The event was held near the cancer center's new 19-acre site, situated in the Utah City community in Vineyard near Utah Lake. The new Utah County location will be approximately 272,000 square feet and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2028, according to the press release. The Huntsman Cancer Institute serves patients from Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana, as officials say it's 'the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in the Mountain West.' Patients from the Utah County area visited the cancer center in Salt Lake County more than 40,000 times last year. Officials are anticipating more than 55,000 visits to the new facility annually, saying it will likely save patients over two hours of travel time per visit. 'By expanding access to cutting-edge cancer care and research, especially for patients in Utah's rural and frontier communities, we're delivering on our promise to improve lives across the state and beyond,' U of U President Taylor Randall said. Gov. Spencer Cox said this new campus is in response to Utah's growing communities and 'will enhance lifesaving insights and innovations that will transform health here at home and around the world.' The new center will not only improve access for patients, but will also increase collaboration with students and professionals at the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Brigham Young University. The institute currently has 250 research teams studying cancer and touts discovering more genes for inherited cancers than any other cancer center. The new center will make room for additional research and clinical trials while providing a range of cancer services to patients. 'At the University of Utah, the research isn't just part of our mission—it's the engine that drives transformative change,' Randall said. 'The new Huntsman Cancer Institute in Vineyard represents a bold step toward realizing a future where cancer will be a thing of the past.' The total cost of the project is budgeted for $400 million, but only about 75% of the funding has been secured so far. Contributors from the Huntsman Family Foundation, the State of Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Flagship Companies, Woodbury Corporation, and several other companies, foundations, and families have donated to the new cancer center. Officials with the Huntsman Cancer Foundation said they are 'confident that their passionate community of donors will help complete the needed funding.' 'Huntsman Cancer Institute's vision in the new fields of research, such as DNA and immunotherapies, will help change cancer outcomes for a generation. Today, we make the investment that will shape the next generation of care and research and hopefully bring an end to cancer,' said Peter Huntsman, CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
BYU and the University of Utah both crack Forbes' ‘Top 100′ list of premier colleges
College basketball season is in its Final Four homestretch — and college football season is still months away. But college rankings apparently know no seasons. Several Utah universities are included in Forbes' recent annual list showcasing 500 schools 'that produce successful, high-earning and influential graduates' from all economic backgrounds, with less student debt. And what would a college rankings list be without tossing in a 'BYU vs. Utah' wrinkle? Both Beehive State-based universities — one a private institution (BYU), the other a public school (University of Utah) — cracked Forbes' recent Top-100 list. BYU came in at No. 36, while the University of Utah is ranked 94th. For BYU, the Forbes recognition is just one of many for the Provo-based school over the past year. BYU landed the top spot in the 2025 WSJ/College Pulse Best College rankings for colleges most highly recommended by students and recent alums. The ranking assessed the extent to which students would recommend BYU to a friend and whether they would choose BYU again if they could start over, according to the university. Meanwhile, leadership at the state's flagship public university said the Forbes' recognition is evidence of a school on the rise. 'We appreciate this recognition from Forbes,' said University of Utah President Taylor Randall. 'It's confirmation of what we already know about the University of Utah. We are constantly improving— innovating the student experience, accelerating discovery to impact lives, providing exceptional healthcare. 'The University of Utah just has this willingness to try new things like no other place. That is our strength. We are entrepreneurial, thinking outside the box, trying to be different from other institutions.' And two other Utah higher education institutions — Utah State University and Weber State University — were included in Forbes' list of 500 high-performing American colleges: Utah State came in at No. 237, Weber State at No. 461. For the second year in a row, Princeton University snatched Forbes' No. 1 spot, according to the online magazine, 'by acing all 14 metrics Forbes uses to determine which 500 American colleges offer the best educational, financial and career outcomes for all students.' The other schools on Forbes' top-10 list are traditionally counted among the nation's educational institution heavyweights: Stanford, MIT, Yale, Cal-Berkeley, Columbia, Penn, Harvard, Rice and Cornell. All institutions on the magazine's top-10 list are private schools, with the exception of Cal-Berkeley. Also noted by Forbes: 'At a time when applications to historically black colleges and universities are surging and diversity efforts at some state universities are being cut back, six HBCUs earned spots in the top 500, up from three last year.' The magazine did not consider schools' acceptance rates in its rankings, but they did include an interesting caveat: While prestigious schools such as Princeton, Stanford and MIT have sub-10% admission rates — 38 of the top-100 schools admit more than 30% of applicants, and 16 of them admit 50% or more. 'In other words,' the article noted, 'these are great schools with less admissions stress.' BYU and the University of Utah — both ranked in the Top 100 — both have reported acceptance rates above 50%. To create its college rankings of America's Top Colleges, Forbes began with a list of thousands of U.S. colleges that educate undergraduates according to their Carnegie Classification — a higher education framework that categorizes institutions based on the types of degrees they offer, their research output and specialty focus. The magazine chose doctoral research universities, master's universities and colleges and baccalaureate colleges — as well as colleges that offered specialized programs in engineering, business and art. Forbes then evaluated schools using data from two federal education databases (the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and College Scorecard); the Seattle-based software and data company Payscale; the Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank Third Way; the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics; and some of Forbes' own lists. The nation's five service academies were excluded from the magazine's consideration because 'they operate very differently from the other institutions on the list.' Key quality factors such as graduation rates, a degree's return on investment and retention rates were also considered. The online magazine noted that BYU is a private research university that offers nearly 200 undergraduate majors — with the most popular ones including computer science and psychology. Sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU received an 'A+' financial grade by Forbes — noting that the school's average grant aid is $6,325 and median 10-year-salary is $133,900. Forbes highlighted the University of Utah as a public research university that offers students approximately 400 clubs and student organizations. The school's average grant aid, according to Forbes, is $9,696 with a median 10-year-salary of $125,900. Utah State, noted Forbes, began as an agricultural college and now enrolls more than 25,000 students. The school's reported average grant aid is $9,808. Forbes highlighted Weber State's flexible programs serving both traditional and nontraditional students, with more than 100 undergraduate programs across seven schools. Weber State's average grant aid, reported Forbes, is $5,831.
