Gov’s $5.4M veto won’t slow UAF’s pursuit of top-tier research status this year, chancellor says

Fall sun hits the University of Alaska Fairbanks entrance sign on September 13, 2023. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)

A $5.4 million veto from Gov. Mike Dunleavy took a bite out of University of Alaska Fairbanks’ nearly $18 million boost in state money to increase its graduate student population in pursuit of top-tier research university status.

Chancellor Daniel White said the veto does not affect the university’s progress towards its goal in the next year.

“From our standpoint, we have exactly what we need to get started. We have exactly what we need for the first year and into the second,” he said.

American universities must prove that they have a significant dedication of research dollars and graduate students over a three-year period to achieve top-tier status and be ranked in the top 4% of the nation’s research institutions, known in the university research world as R1 status. The ranking comes from a national framework for categorizing research universities in the United States, the Carnegie Classification .

If UAF can maintain an average of 70 doctorates a year through 2026, it will qualify and be granted top-tier status in 2028. If not, the university can try again in the next three-year cycle and attempt to achieve its goal in 2031. The university currently spends four times the threshold for research dollars, but needs to increase its doctoral student roster by about 35 students.

“In our assessment, we need $20 (million) and we will communicate with the governor next year, but we’re going out full steam ahead, and we think we’re still on target, and this is what we need,” he said.

The veto knocked out $5.4 million that would have come from the state’s general fund, but the university will still receive $12.5 million from the state’s Alaska higher education investment fund and be able to use $2.1 million in university receipts.

White expressed gratitude to three regional legislators, including Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks.

“It’s unfortunate, but not fatal,” Stapp said of the veto, and added that the university may have needed to request more money to achieve R1 status in the future anyway.

Alaska is one of only five states without an R1 research university and Stapp said it would be a boon for the state as well as the city and university.

“Metrics on how they perform on federal research dollars, faculty retention, enrollment — all those things — correlate towards the positive,” he said. “I look forward to the university being able to achieve that and having something in Alaska move towards the positive.”

UAF has roughly 280 Ph.D students already, White said, so it is first looking at ways to use the funding to empower students already on campus to graduate.

“How many of those students are planning to graduate in four or five years, but if they had the funding available, to graduate in two?” he asked. The university has looked into that and identified 57 students that it can support to help them finish their doctoral degree in the next two years.

He said the university has already been advertising to students: “We’re going to be able to offer you enough funding for you to complete your degree in as short an amount of time as possible,” he said, adding that he didn’t want students to have to pause their educations to go make money before they return. “We want you to just focus on your education and get that Ph.D. as quickly as practical for you.”

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