The Arizona Board of Regents approved a preliminary budget request for the state universities and their programs totaling $632.2 million.
The board voted Thursday to send the request to Gov. Katie Hobbs for her fiscal year 2026 overall state budget proposal to the Legislature. Fiscal year 2026 starts on July 1, 2025.
“The university system has developed a 2026 budget request that affirms its promise to Arizona — to increase postsecondary access and attainment for Arizona students while increasing quality, affordability and efficiency,” ABOR’s budget proposal states. “This budget request focuses state investment on widening educational opportunity and producing the workforce and economic investments that are needed in Arizona.”
ABOR is requesting the governor grant the board $23.2 million for operational funding, $130 million to fund the AZ Healthy Tomorrow program, $150 million for opportunity economy, $129 million for educational affordability and $200 million for capital investment.
The requests come after the universities faced a $96.9 million reduction in state appropriations in this year’s state budget. That includes cuts of $23.2 million to general appropriations; just under $8 million cut for the University of Arizona’s main campus and health sciences center; nearly $11 million cut from Arizona State University and $4 million from Northern Arizona University.
“The universities are diligently working to operationalize those changes without undermining the quality and impact of their efforts, but it will be impossible to avoid negative outcomes,” according to the board’s proposal.
Healthy Tomorrow Program
The Arizona Healthy Tomorrow program, run by ABOR, is meant to double the graduates at the UA medical schools, as well as help pay for the creation of medical schools at ASU and NAU.
The $130 million requested by ABOR in next year’s budget for the program would not only expand the UA’s College of Medicine in Phoenix and Tucson, but also expedite the development of ASU Health, which will include a medical school, a school of advanced medical engineering and a health observatory.
Additionally, the money would go to expanding NAU’s allied health offerings and to continued exploration of the idea of a medical school focused on primary care and service to rural communities.
That money may be crucial in addressing the state’s doctor shortage.
According to research by the UA Center for Rural Health, Arizona had a shortage of 560 primary care physicians last year and 1,941 more will be needed by 2030 because of “retirements, population increases, higher rates of chronic disease and an aging population.”
Arizona is ranked 42nd in the country in total active primary care physicians, meeting just 39% of its need, according to the UA Center for Rural Health.
Increasing affordability, access
The board is asking for a bump in funding for the Arizona Promise Program, which provides full scholarships to Pell-grant-eligible Arizona high schoolers with a GPA of at least 2.5 to ASU, NAU and the UA.
The program is an unfunded mandate, meaning even with this year’s cuts of $20 million, the universities still must provide scholarships.
Now, ABOR is asking the governor to propose $115 million for the program for fiscal 2026.
This “which would reverse the (fiscal year) 2025 budget reduction and fully fund need-based aid for those students who are eligible under current guidelines,” the board said.
Additionally, the board is asking for funding to the Arizona Teachers Academy, which offers full tuition coverage for students who agree to teach in Arizona schools after graduating from one of the three state universities or a handful of two-year colleges, including Pima Community College.
This year, the program’s state funding was cut by $15 million.
The program, which guarantees a job after graduation, helps address the state’s teacher shortage. According to the Arizona Personnel Administrators Association, there were more than 9,600 teaching positions open for the 2022-23 school year. After one month into the school year, the organization reported that almost one-third of teaching positions remained unfilled.
Of the open spot, 42% were filled by teachers who did not meet the standard teaching requirements.
In March, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said the teacher shortage was a “potential catastrophe” requiring immediate attention.
Workforce, innovation, technology
The board is requesting $150 million in this category to expand programs that “equip students with the skills needed for emerging industries, particularly in technology, healthcare and sustainably energy” while also strengthening university research, enhancing partnerships between universities and the private sector and upgrading facilities to better suit and support research opportunities.
Capital investment
The $200 million the board is requesting in capital investments would go to building and infrastructure repairs and renovations, which is an “acute need, as the unfunded state building renewal formula calculation for the universities was $241.5 million” this year.
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