Faced with a growing budget deficit that is now projected to reach $45 million, the University of North Texas has announced that it will close or consolidate 85 of its academic programs.
The news came Thursday in a letter from UNT President Harrison Keller and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael A. McPherson that informed the campus that “after careful review and consultation with deans, we have made the difficult decision to begin the process of closing or consolidating certain academic programs.”
The administrators assured students who were already enrolled in those programs that they would be able to complete their degrees as planned. However, no new students will be allowed to enroll in the affected programs.
The letter continued, “we will support faculty and advisors to ensure these changes do not disrupt our students’ academic progress. Students who are directly impacted will receive more information from their programs.” And it indicated that conversations were underway “with other institutions in our region to design pathways for our students who are interested in pursuing credentials that we do not offer.”
Included in the list of changes is the merger of the Department of Linguistics and the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, effective September 1, 2026. That consolidation will also involve the phasing out of all degrees offered by the Department of Linguistics.
In addition to the programs in linguistics, the university will phase out:
3 master’s programs due to low enrollment (an average of 15 or fewer students per year over the past five years). They include early childhood education, women’s and gender studies, media industry and critical studies.
1 undergraduate major due to low enrollment, relatively lower time to value, and a higher cost of instruction (Latino and Latin American Studies).
25 undergraduate minors that have had average enrollments of 20 students or fewer since 2021.
21 graduate and 21 undergraduate certificates that have average enrollments below two students per year.
The full list of affected programs can be found here.
Keller and McPherson explained that the “programs were selected after a thorough evaluation of multiple factors, including student demand and enrollment trends, time to value, resource efficiency, and alignment with our mission.”
The projected $45 million deficit for the current fiscal year was substantially greater than the $31.2 million deficit that UNT had budgeted. The university blamed the budget shortfall primarily on enrollment decreases — especially among international graduate students — and decreases in state funding for instruction and operations.
In addition to the program cuts, the university will consider several other efforts to stem the red ink, including increasing teaching workloads and minimum class sizes, freezing some faculty and staff vacant lines, reorganizing administrative units, making greater use of the hybrid delivery of courses and attempting to add more revenue through increased student enrollment and retention.
As it pursues those strategies, Keller and McPherson said, “we must adapt to meet the changing needs of our students, employers, and communities across Texas and beyond, especially by providing degree and credential pathways that translate into opportunities beyond graduation. By making these difficult but necessary decisions, we will be able to strengthen the quality and impact of our current academic programs while investing in new areas that help us build momentum for the future.”