2025 Kansas legislative session begins Jan. 13

1/13/2025 -- The 2025 legislative session begins Monday, Jan. 13. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly will release her Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal Jan. 16. Traditionally, each year the budget proposal serves as the starting point for legislative debate in the months that follow.

The University of Kansas looks forward to reviewing the budget proposal to identify items that would benefit higher education. The university will then share information about those items with legislators and KU audiences in the days ahead. 

In the meantime, KU leaders anticipate asking the Legislature for stable base funding to enable KU to keep tuition steady for students and parents and to ensure students have the support services they need to succeed. This is especially important given KU currently has its highest enrollment in history and expects another strong class of freshmen to join the university in fall 2025.

Additionally, KU is asking for funding for the following initiatives:

• Expansion of the Kansas Medical Student Loan Program, which provides loans to students who agree to practice medicine in Kansas after residency.
• Enhancements to university IT infrastructure and cybersecurity.
• Recruitment and retention of research faculty in areas that drive the Kansas economy, such as engineering, cancer and brain health.
• Construction of a new School of Architecture & Design building.

As a reminder, the last three sessions have resulted in strong higher education budgets to support items such as essential operations funding, increased need-based scholarships, merit salary increases and other critical investments. As a result, KU has been able to hold tuition stable and last year recruited the largest freshman class in KU history.

“We thank our state government officials for their leadership in recent years and look forward to continuing productive discussions in 2025,” said Chancellor Douglas A. Girod.