The plan aims to achieve up to $20 million in cost savings and new revenues.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Wega52/E+/Getty Images | Library of Congress
Southern Oregon University is in survival mode.
Last summer officials at the public regional university with about 5,000 students declared financial exigency, a move that came on the heels of other cuts in past years amid declining revenue and rising operating costs. But now trustees are weighing a plan to enact deep cuts as the university looks to meet a state mandate to balance its budget by June 2027. While the state stepped in to approve $15 million in emergency funding, legislators put strings on those dollars. In addition to the balanced budget requirement, a state budget provision calls on Southern Oregon to “develop a plan for future delivery of higher education … without reliance on ongoing increases in state support.”
SOU is currently running a projected budget deficit of $12.5 million, which is expected to grow. The university has tapped consulting firm Deloitte to identify potential savings. That proposal, known as “The Path Forward,” aims to achieve up to $20 million in cost savings and new revenues.
Deloitte has warned that without changes, SOU could close. Consultants wrote in a draft document the university may need to consider alternative plans, including “a controlled winddown,” if “milestones are not hit.”
The plan calls for eliminating four programs: music; international studies; gender, sexuality and women’s studies; and creative writing. Consultants also recommend consolidating nine other programs. With the vast majority of SOU’s enrollment (78 percent) concentrated in just 10 programs, according to the report, cuts and consolidation will directly affect 382 students. The report does not specify how many jobs will be cut, but a preliminary plan from Deloitte called for $7 million to $8 million in cuts to academic units. Of those projected savings, 70 percent would be generated by reductions in faculty ranks and another 30 percent from staff cuts.
Deloitte officials wrote in the report that the proposal will “rapidly align expenses to revenues” and “strengthen and build identity around a core set of programs while expanding the learner base.” But as the board contemplates cuts ahead of a meeting Friday, students and faculty are seething. Many worry that Southern Oregon intends to ram through cuts that will eliminate cherished programs; some also question the math behind the recommendations that will reshape campus.
Community Concerns
Southern Oregon has seen multiple rounds of job cuts in recent years as it struggles with dwindling enrollment and rising costs in a state that funds higher education at among the lowest levels in the nation. While the report notes that full-time enrollment is down by 8.6 percent since 2020, net tuition revenue fell by 24 percent between fiscal year 2021 and FY25.
As cuts have added up, they’ve taken an emotional toll on students.
Student body president Sophia Smith spoke through tears at a Tuesday listening session.
“These are not tears of sadness or embarrassment. These are tears of pure, unadulterated anger that we find our institution in this situation. This plan is more than a reset for the university’s financial future. It is a continuation of the removal of the very heart of this institution,” Smith said.
Another student, Em Anderson, told university leaders in the listening session that while Southern Oregon has given her much, she has to constantly prepare herself “for the next hit” and worries “that those friends and professors who I cherish will be seen as dead weight and cut.”
Faculty Senate chair Dennis Slattery, an accounting professor, acknowledged fiscal challenges: “I’m a numbers person; I teach numbers, [and] our numbers suck,” he said.
But he also shared resolutions passed by the Faculty Senate calling for the board to delay its looming vote on the proposal, commission an independent audit and freeze administrative hiring. Despite recent listening sessions, Slattery argued that more dialogue is necessary.
Other professors were more pointed in their remarks at the listening session. Carey Jean Sojka, a gender, sexuality and women’s studies professor, questioned the numbers used to justify eliminating the program. She argued that Deloitte was using outdated figures and more recent data would show that the program is in the black.
Some faculty members also warned that once enacted, cuts cannot be easily undone.
“Eliminating our music program is not cost saving; it is asset destroying,” music department chair Jerron Jorgensen said. “Once this music program is gone, it cannot be rebuilt cheaply or quickly.”
A Pivotal Vote
In a Monday press call, SOU president Rick Bailey said that while the timeline for changes is “dizzyingly fast,” it reflects a “call for urgency.” Deloitte developed the plan after the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Council hired the firm in early March to deliver a set of recommendations by the end of April.
Bailey also noted that Oregon officials are observing as the university develops its plan.
“I do think that the state is looking at us—at SOU specifically—and our willingness to transform. I think all eyes are on our school this week, around the state, and I do think that we have to find a balance between understanding the need for urgency and actually leaning into that and committing to the things that we need to do and understanding that we also have a role as caretakers and stewards of this institution, not just for now, but for generations from now,” Bailey said.
SOU’s board will vote on the recommendations today. But Bailey has noted that the proposal is not “a wholesale plan that our board is going to give a thumbs up or down to” but rather a starting point. The board will have latitude to approve, reject or modify the proposal. And what comes out of Friday’s meeting is likely to shape the future of the university in irretractable ways.
“As they consider this, they will likely make a decision that says we are committed to transformation. These consultants have given a blueprint for that, that we need to take serious consideration on,” he said. “And then it’s up to [me] and the rest of the campus community to build an implementation plan that takes into account the recommendations that we’ve been given.”
