University enrollment has been declining over the past decade and that seems to be particularly acute in Oregon where several different universities are struggling with big budget gaps. For instance, this reports was published last week.
Southern Oregon University could receive $15 million from the state under an end-of-session budget bill aimed at stabilizing the Ashland campus as it faces its third financial crisis in four years…
SOU recently announced that it will drop below its approved cash threshold of $12.68 million this year. By the end of February 2027, the university projects it won’t have enough cash to make payroll. Leadership anticipates a shortfall of more than $14 million by June 2027.
Portland State University is also in serious trouble. It’s facing a $35 million budget shortfall over the next two years and is now considering a process called retrenchment which would make significant cuts to as many as 19 departments.
PSU President Ann Cudd announced Monday that the university will pursue retrenchment, a formal process to downsize the institution.
“I’m taking this step because after reviewing the results of our work, it has become clear that our financial condition is such that departmental reductions or eliminations may be unavoidable,” Cudd said in a morning press conference…
Retrenchment could have serious consequences for people who teach and learn at Portland State. It’s a mechanism that allows PSU to make sweeping cost-cutting decisions on its workforce and academic programs when the university is under financial hardship.
Tenured faculty, whose jobs are typically considered permanent, could find their positions on the cutting room floor too.
The union that represents over 1,000 workers at PSU is not happy about this announcement. They are planning to criticize the claim that the school is out of money.
Under Article 22, President Cudd must first declare that the financial condition of the university merits the use of Article 22. This requires a presentation to PSU-AAUP about the university’s financial condition, followed by a presentation to the Faculty Senate. In the process that ensues, President Cudd is to provide 30 days for comment and engagement with the financial condition arguments she presents. This first phase is a crucial period in which PSU-AAUP, the Faculty Senate, and the university community can address the financial analysis of the university, produce counter-analyses, and organize around the university’s representation of its finances and our counter-proposals and counter-narratives…
Through layoffs and program closures, we only dig ourselves deeper into decline and build more barriers to our success. The administration has shifted from a no-growth plan of managed decline to a growth-anxious plan of managed decline. But we need to see real investment in growth now and a corresponding pause on retrenchment in order to prevent further harm to Portland State’s future. I call on President Cudd to take seriously the responsibilities these decisions generate– to our students, our faculty and staff, our community, the city, and the state. I will be making this case over and over again in the exchanges to come: we can choose a path of real commitment to growth rather than implementing decline in the name of unfunded mandates that only recycle the austerity trap that has held us for a decade…
While Southern Oregon University is poised to receive $15 million in emergency funding from Salem, PSU has not asked for similar intervention and has been happy to move forward unaided, ready to cut.
An “austerity trap” is left-wing speak for paying one’s debts and living within one’s means as opposed to spending with wild abandon when you’re already broke. The Faculty Senate also seems to be on board with the plan to keep spending while broke.
Matt Chorpenning, president of the Faculty Senate and an associate professor of practice at Portland State’s school of social work, said there is widespread agreement on campus that the college’s budget situation is dire, driven by a 23% decline in enrollment since 2019.
But he said the university should consider digging deeper into its reserves to buy itself time amid what he contended was “a fascist crackdown on higher education” by the federal government under President Donald Trump that has made federal funding for higher education more unpredictable. That would, Chorpenning said, give the university a chance to figure out a more sustainable path forward.
There are only two sustainable paths forward. Cut spending or increase the number of students. Since the number of students is trending downward, that only leaves one choice and it’s the one progressives and unionists hate.
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