UCLA’s year-end budget deficit for the 2026 fiscal year was about $160 million lower than its initial projections, Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a campuswide email Thursday.
The university was projected to generate a $220 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year, said Reem Hanna-Harwell, UCLA’s interim chief financial officer, in a March campuswide email. The new figure, a year-end deficit of $58 million, only applies to UCLA’s central account – which consists of state funding, tuition and facilities and administrative costs for research – rather than the combined deficit of all campus units, Frenk said in the email.
Frenk did not provide specifics in the Thursday email about how UCLA’s budget deficit shrank. UCLA Media Relations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what measures the university took to address its budget shortfalls.
Hanna-Harwell’s estimate came after Stephen Agostini, UCLA’s former CFO, alleged in a February interview with The Bruin that administrators’ financial mismanagement led to a projected $425 million annual deficit, and previous university financial reports contained errors. Agostini was out as UCLA’s CFO four days after The Bruin published his allegations.
The $425 million projection included spending requests that had not been approved and did not accurately represent the university’s projected central account deficit, Hanna-Harwell said in the March email.
[Related: Financial mismanagement contributed to $425 million annual deficit, UCLA CFO says]
UCLA’s underlying central structural deficit – a persistent mismatch between the university’s revenue and expenses, rather than the year-end deficit – remains in the previously reported range of $220 million, Frenk said in the email. Several units, including UCLA Athletics, continue to spend more than they receive, he added.
“We will continue to identify annual solutions that mitigate the immediate impact of these structural gaps,” Frenk said. “At the same time, we are developing the financial and operational changes necessary to achieve sustained budget balance.”
UCLA has implemented several cost-cutting measures in the past year, including through consolidating campus information technology services and pausing new faculty hiring.
Several campus programs – including the Academic Advancement Program and UCLA’s foreign language departments – also downsized their operations in response to budget cuts.
[Related: “A Perfect Storm”: How Budget Cuts Have Impacted UCLA]
UCLA took on new recurring costs, including mandated wage increases, while attempting to fix its budget deficit, Frenk said in the email. He added that the university is developing a new budget model and reassessing its finances.
“Ultimately, our solutions must both close the central structural gap and ensure that units across the campus operate within their available resources,” Frenk said.
