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Head to head · Wichita State vs. Nebraska–Omaha, FY27

Same size, different priorities: where Omaha's extra dollars go

Two universities of about 15,000 students, five budget lines.

FY27 budget by category, all funds

$0M $25M $50M $75M $100M $125M $150M $146.0M $96.61M Instruction $25.66M $39.85M Academic Support $30.42M $31.85M Institutional Support $36.09M $49.46M Student Services $115.2M $58.26M Scholarships / Student Aid
Nebraska–Omaha Wichita State

In FY27 Nebraska–Omaha puts $146.0M into Instruction against WSU's $96.6M, and roughly twice as much into student financial support ($115.2M vs. $58.3M). WSU spends more on Academic Support ($39.9M vs. $25.7M) and Student Services ($49.5M vs. $36.1M), and the two spend almost the same on central administration ($31.9M vs. $30.4M).

The one line WSU spends least on, relative to its peer, is the one that pays faculty. Every other category is at or above Omaha's level.

Average faculty salary by rank, College of Business, FY27

$0K $50K $100K $150K $200K $141K $155K UNO +10% Assistant Professor $141K $154K UNO +9% Associate Professor $163K $172K UNO +5% Professor $106K $87K WSU +22% Non-tenure-track
Wichita State (Barton) Nebraska–Omaha

Same rule on both sides: department chairs and deans are excluded, so this compares teaching-and-research faculty only. At every tenure-track rank UNO pays more — Assistant Professor $155.1K vs Barton's $141.0K (+10%), Associate Professor $153.8K vs $141.2K (+9%), Professor $172.1K vs $163.5K (+5%). Non-tenure-track is the reverse: Barton's NTT faculty average $105.8K against UNO's $86.6K, about 22% more.

Barton pays its tenure-track faculty less than Omaha at every rank, but its non-tenure-track faculty more. The tenure-track gap is largest at the entry rank (about $14K for a new Assistant Professor) and narrows to about $9K at full Professor; the NTT gap runs the other way by about $19K. Stipends barely matter once chairs are out: UNO's base-only averages are $154.3K / $153.5K / $166.3K / $85.6K, within a few thousand of the totals.

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