(Concord Monitor) Senate Bill Would Restore Some Higher Ed Funding

By Jeremy Margolis — Concord Monitor

Published February 10, 2026

This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. The Clock is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.

Halfway through his junior year, Plymouth State University student Jeremiah Githu’s academic adviser announced she was taking a buyout and leaving the university.

Githu had relied on the professor to guide him through his molecular and cellular biology major since his freshman year, and her abrupt departure proved both academically disruptive and emotionally challenging.

“Watching advisers leave and having to find a new job or find a new opportunity because the school can’t provide for them — it’s heartbreaking,” he said in an interview.

The loss of faculty and staff is just one of the austerity measures that schools are undertaking this year following the passage of a $35 million, two-year reduction in state funding for the public university and community college systems.

Tuition across the university system increased this school year for the first time since 2019, and it is expected to go up again next year by 2.5%. Before the increases, the University of New Hampshire already had the third-highest in-state tuition and fees of any flagship university in the country, according to a report from Oglethorpe University that analyzed data from the 2023-24 school year.

Some relief could be on the way, however. A bill introduced in the Senate last month would restore the $17.5 million in funding that was eliminated from the second year of the current biennium.

The bill, SB 604, has the support of several Senate Democrats and at least one Republican, Sen. Dan Innis of Bradford, who is a UNH professor.

“I’m trying to find revenue,” Innis told the chancellor of the university system, Cathy Provencher, following a hearing on the bill last week.

The Senate has not yet voted on the bill, and it could face an uphill battle in the House, which was the more bullish of the two legislative bodies on the funding reductions last year.

In an interview, Innis said he was trying to rally support for the bill among his Republican colleagues. He expected the Senate could table the bill and then re-evaluate it when lawmakers had a better sense of the state’s fiscal year revenue in late May or June.

It’s possible, he said, that the exact funding numbers could be adjusted.

“My colleagues [in the Senate] value the university system,” Innis said. “The House is a little bumpier.”

Under the current budget, the university and community college systems are set to receive $28 and $7 million less, respectively, over two years than they would have received had higher education been level-funded, a total reduction of 18%.

Provencher said that restoring that money “would have an immediate impact” and could lead the university system’s Board of Trustees to reconsider anticipated tuition increases for next year.

Lawmakers will also consider another avenue to lessen students’ tuition costs: Senate Bill 407 would appropriate $300 per Granite State student to the university system for the express purpose of reducing tuition. The total would amount to roughly $3 million in revenue, according to Provencher.

The bill is sponsored by Republican Sen. James Gray of Rochester, who also serves on the university system’s board. During a hearing on the bill last week, Gray said he thought tying an appropriation to individual students would be more palatable to members of the House than a lump sum, though he acknowledged his plan was “probably not feasible” for the upcoming school year.

“We need to start having the discussion about how we are going to fund UNH, USNH and the community college [system],” he said. “Certainly with the atmosphere over in the house about the things we tried to do last year, it’s not sustainable.”

Currently, the amount the state appropriates for higher education per full-time student — $4,629 — is the lowest in the country, according to an analysis conducted by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute.

The national average is more than double that sum: $11,683.