Recent federal cuts are hacking at an additional piece of college and university budgets and operations: on-campus broadcast and radio stations.
On July 18, Congress voted to rescind $1.1 billion in federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which gives money to NPR, PBS and their member stations. The move hurts local stations across the country, particularly in rural regions, as well as dozens of broadcast hubs located at or affiliated with colleges.
More than half of NPR’s 1,000 member stations are licensed to or affiliated with colleges or universities, according to NPR’s website. A 2019 PBS article listed 49 university and college public television licensees, a majority of which belong to public institutions—many of them flagship or public land-grant universities, but some community and technical colleges as well.
Data analysis by Alex Curley, a former NPR staffer and author of the blog Semipublic, found that university licensees were far more dependent than non-college affiliated stations on “non-operating revenue,” which includes CPB funding and other money allocated by their parent organization to cover losses. Out of the 173 public stations Curley analyzed, 129 university licensees relied on nonoperating revenue for about 41 percent of their total revenue, compared to the 21 percent it covered for non-college–affiliated stations.
“For stations that lose federal funding, especially those who are losing a lot in relation to total revenue, that’s going to put a huge burden on their parent organization [the college or university] because they’re the only ones who can cover that deficit,” Curley said.
On average, CPB funding makes up 12 percent of independently owned and operated public radio stations’ budgets, according to Northwestern University’s Medill School 2023 State of Local News Report. Curley’s analysis found that 15 percent of all stations relied on federal funding for 50 percent or more of their total revenue intake.
An Inside Higher Ed analysis of Curley’s data found that cuts to CPB and other relevant federal funding could decimate university-based stations’ expected revenue.
Methodology
To compile his database, Adopt a Station, Curley drew on two types of financial reports by public broadcast statements to identify where they sourced their revenue and how much federal funding they received. Based on these reports, Curley estimated how a lack of CPB dollars and other relevant grants would impact total revenue sources. See the full database here.
Howard University’s TV station, WHUT—which was recently awarded two Emmys for its work—lost as much as 21 percent, based on 2023 numbers from the station’s financial reports of revenue from federal sources.
KISU, the local station for Idaho State University students and community members—which produces the athletics broadcast for Division 1 sports—is also poised to take a hit; 30 percent of the station’s funding comes from student fees, but an additional 30 percent comes from CPB.
Some institutions host both radio and TV stations that saw budgets slashed. At Vincennes University in Indiana, TV station WVUT is projected to lose 39 percent of its usual revenue from CPB dollars, while radio station WVUB could lose 27 percent, according to Curley’s data, which would place greater pressure on the institution to fill the gap.
In Washington state, Skagit Valley Community College’s radio station, KSVR—which provides bilingual reporting to the Mount Vernon community, hosted by staff, local and student volunteers—is projected to lose 20 percent of its revenue.
The cuts will also likely reduce opportunities on many campuses for students to gain hands-on experience working in a newsroom or alongside professionals. When cuts took place at public media stations in the past, those affiliated with a college or university were less likely to see reductions in force, Curley said—in part because the university could cover the losses they incurred.
Now, in an environment where colleges and universities are facing deficits across revenue sources, college-based media stations have less of a safety net.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” Curley said. “It’s almost new territory for many university licensees.”
Elizabeth City State University’s on-campus station, WRVS, has five employees and a gaggle of student interns, work-study students and community volunteers who keep the station up and running. But under the latest federal cuts, WRVS’s expected revenue will be slashed an estimated 71 percent.
Not every university-affiliated station has the same reliance on federal dollars; the University of Georgia’s WUGA, for instance, reported that just 1 percent of total revenue came from federal funds in 2023. The University of Florida’s WUFT-FM received about 5 percent of total revenue from the government, thanks in part to fundraising efforts and in part to the success of the station in its local area, Curley said.
A 2023 survey of 215 public radio stations found that, on average, colleges contribute less than 15 percent of funding to affiliated radio stations, and 80 percent of stations thought it was unlikely that they would receive additional financial support from their institution.
In some parts of the country, student publications, radio and TV stations are the singular source of news for communities. But a lack of funding and support for current operations remains a primary barrier to getting more students involved in public media, according to a 2023 survey by the University of Vermont.
The move to cut funding for CPB is generally unpopular with Americans. A Harris Poll on behalf of NPR published in July found that two-thirds of nearly 2,100 Americans surveyed support federal funding for public radio, with a similar number calling it a good value for taxpayer dollars. A 2025 survey found that 47 percent of viewers say PBS’s value for public dollars is excellent and an additional 29 percent said it’s good.
(This story has been updated to correct the state where Vincennes University is located.)
