All public universities and community colleges in the state of Ohio will take a 3.8% budget cut for the remainder of the fiscal year, the Ohio Department of Higher Education announced Wednesday morning.
The spending reduction will take $76,712,787 out of the planned $2 billion budget for such institutions, bringing the total budget across all 37 schools down to $1,940,444,439.
The cut applies equally to each school, meaning the two that received the most funding — the University of Cincinnati and the Ohio State University — also lost the most.
The University of Cincinnati’s $214 million budget is about $8.1 million smaller, bringing it down to $206.6 million.
The Ohio State University was originally slated to receive $392.3 million from the state and will now receive abnout $377 million.
The overall reduction is still slightly smaller than Gov. Mike DeWine had predicted in his Tuesday afternoon news conference, where he announced the state was facing a $776.9 million budget deficit for the year 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
DeWine pledged not to draw from the state’s rainy day fund to close the gap. Instead, he announced a series of cuts to Medicaid spending, education and other state agencies.
