ANAHEIM, Calif. — Keep calm and continue with the budget.
That was the message from the 2026 annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers earlier this week, which comes amid federal policy changes the Trump administration has advanced over the past 18 months. While many of those changes—which some critics describe as a corporate attack on higher education—will affect the foundations of institutions, speakers urged attendees to act based on reality, not political propaganda.
“Now, things can change, and things can happen, but they don’t change until there is a new law or a new regulation. Please don’t react to what you see on X or TikTok or Instagram or Truth Social,” Liz Clark, vice president of policy and research at NACUBO, said in the session. “Please remember to respond to what is really there Federal Register even if the law is imposed.”
Federal Policy Outlook
Some major changes in federal policy, however, are already in effect.
Recent shifts that have gained attention at the conference include new income tests, the expansion of Pell Grants to workforce programs and changes in federal financial aid awards.
In the main stage session hosted by Within Higher Edexperts offer a mixed view of those changes.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, described the expansion of Pell Grants in temporary worker programs and the new salary test as a potential positive. But he called the restrictions on student loans an “extremely serious” thing that would force institutions to make tough decisions, including pulling back on some graduate programs.
Kara Freeman, president and CEO of NACUBO, said the changes create “the potential for an access crisis.” While he notes that private lenders can step in to fill the gap between discounted loan periods, those companies will look closely at credit history and other risk factors, which could leave some students unable to finance graduate programs.
Experts at NACUBO also discussed the proposed changes on the horizon.
They were particularly skeptical of a proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget to rewrite uniform guidelines for federal grants and political appointees with the power to approve such funding. The proposal also gives the federal government far greater leeway to end federal grants, including in the “national interest,” a term OMB did not define.
“They can terminate a grant at any time without a formal appeals process,” explained Gil Tran, a former OMB official who now works at grant management firm Attain Partners. He added that the undefined “national interest” criterion may not change based on the priorities of incumbents, giving political appointees greater control over grant funding.
Barbara Cevallos, vice president and system administrator at the University of California, noted that such terminations could halt ongoing research efforts.
“Perhaps you have a project that has been going on for five years, you have reached the point where you think it has results, and they decide that it is against the needs of the country,” he said. “This really scares me.
The proposal received hundreds of thousands of public comments, far exceeding the previous review of federal grant rules. Although OMB proposed to implement the changes on Oct. 1, Tran suggested that the odds of a meeting that day were “50-50,” given the volume of comments.
How CBOs Are Using AI
Discussions surrounding artificial intelligence also loomed large in Anaheim.
Discussions have strengthened the results Inside Higher Ed’s The 2026 Survey of College and University Chief Business Officers, found that while many CBOs see value in AI, they are using it more on a personal basis rather than as part of an institutional plan. Most respondents noted that their university’s AI investment is in the pilot phase.
Many at the conference described using AI in self-directed, experimental ways to write emails or budget models. But those who have touched AI at the institutional level have noted time and cost savings.
Justin Barkhuff, director of business applications at California Lutheran University, told the audience at a session on institutional investment in AI that California Lutheran has built-in tools to help with educational interventions and program improvement.
For example, Barkhuff noted that Cal Lutheran has created an AI tool to help schedule students’ work hours during their class hours, which can change as they add or drop courses. Laws regarding maximum wages and minimum hours that students can work add additional problems to planning.
“We built an AI system that knows all the rules and knows all the students you supervise and their lesson plans, and in a few seconds it spits out a proposed curriculum. We think that would take 36 hours a year, each supervisor’s process, and that cuts two hours,” Barkhuff said.
Brett Pollak, senior director of technology and infrastructure services at the University of California, San Diego, said his institution has used AI in admissions processes. Pollak noted that UC San Diego receives a large number of applications each year and has historically hired temporary help to make sense of the large volume of manuscripts submitted each year.
“We are one of the most used universities in the country, and as a result, we receive approximately 60,000 applications per academic cycle,” Pollak said. Matching transcripts, or matching transcripts to correct usage, “was mostly a human-driven effort. So if you can imagine, three to five minutes for each of the 60,000 transcripts goes in—too much time.”
By investing in an AI tool and developing an algorithm for comparing goals and documents, Pollak said the admissions office was able to complete that task without hiring temporary help. He estimated the results to be 98 percent accurate.
But before diving into AI, experts urged attendees to think beyond the use cases. John O’Brien, president and CEO of Educause, said at the main forum that college leaders should consider their infrastructure and avoid rushing to invest for fear of being left behind.
“Work on AI governance, work on figuring out how AI can be integrated into the curriculum effectively,” O’Brien said. “Work with discipline and put guards [so] when you’re ready to do AI everything, you’ll be able to do it in a way that respects the traditions of higher education. Take a breath and really think about what we will need to move forward in AI as it matures. “
