There’s suggested reading on the newsstands for the Joint Appropriations Committee and local House District 25 Rep. Paul Hoeft (R-Powell) in preparation for the 2026 budget session of the Wyoming Legislature next week.

Almost coincidental with the JAC’s $40 million whack job on the University of Wyoming biennial budget request, Time Magazine is out with its new list of “The World’s Top Universities of 2026.” UW was ranked No. 99 out of nearly 4,000 accredited, degree-granting U.S. universities, public and private. Specifically, UW was tabbed the nation’s No. 61 public university.

Pretty good marks and certainly strong reason for the people of the least populated state in the nation to be proud of their land grant university.  

Hoeft is not one. He was quick to endorse the JAC gut punch to UW’s budget request in an op-ed published in this newspaper on Jan. 29. He even added in his preamble there’s too much blame of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus going around.

Really? Who’s he kidding? His rant is replete with oft-repeated Freedom Caucus themes of wasteful spending, growth in government and too many social issue programs in education. 

Still, the JAC and Hoeft are entitled to their own opinion. They are not entitled to their own set of facts.

Hoeft cites Colorado State University at Fort Collins as an example of operating lean with respect to state appropriated dollars. The HD 25 rep found in an auditor’s report of CSU that it received $22.3 million in state appropriated funds in the 2024 academic year. He wrote that the University of Wyoming, by contrast, received $230 million in state appropriated funds in its 2024 block grant. “That’s more than 10 times what CSU got,”  Hoeft asserted.

Wrong. What he didn’t recognize and pull from the CSU financial reporting for 2024 were a couple of other line items to benefit CSU with state funds. One in the amount of $148.4 million was a state fee for service which is a direct state appropriation to CSU for the benefit of the state and its residents, and the other was for $48.7 million for state student aid (the College Opportunity Fund). These kind of service fees and student aid are very much a part of the UW block grant.

Reading these financials cold can be difficult. I get it. But full counting of 2024 CSU state appropriated funds comes to right at $220 million. That’s a big difference from $22.3 million. It’s not even apples and oranges. It’s more like comparing oranges and lemons. It’s sour.

Understand this. The State of Wyoming is not on the ropes financially. Gov. Mark Gordon’s budget proposal, including UW, is balanced with millions going into savings. 

One more nugget bears on the UW block grant in comparison to its Colorado neighbors to the south. While the University of Wyoming is the sole four-year public institution in this state, with responsibility to provide a comprehensive program of education to its four corners, Colorado has no less than 14 public universities (in addition to 13 community colleges).

The 14 four-year institutions in Colorado include the University of Colorado System with campuses in Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs and Anschutz Medical Campus; the CSU system at Fort Collins, Pueblo and Global; Colorado Mesa University, Adams Stare University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Western Colorado University, Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Northern Colorado.

The deliberative process in the Legislature will ultimately decide.  Let the light shine.