Alternatives to Academic Cuts
Over the last several months, the United Academics Committee on the University Budget (UCUB) has worked to identify alternatives to academic cuts in response to UO’s projected budget deficit. Please contact the United Academics staff for additional information at info@uauoregon.org.
This report follows our previous recommendations and provides a deeper dive and specific budget proposals.
UA looks forward to partnering with the campus community in these important dialogues about our shared future.
Our initial proposals and their associated financial impacts are:
- Redirect part of the Internal Bank and the Presidential Initiatives Fund earnings to support the core academic mission;
- up to $24.9M in FY27; potential for recurring funds;
- Use part of the Education and General (E&G) ending fund balance to smooth short-term budget shortfalls during this financial transition;
- up to$16M in FY27; potential for recurring funds;
- Reduce E&G fund support for centrally funded capital projects;
- $8-18M per year;
- Redirect part of the UO Foundation gift fee on donations to support the core academic mission;
- $1.5-2M per year;
- Reduce UO’s spending on institutional support to a level comparable to peer institutions;
- $18M per year.
The University of Oregon does not currently have a $63 million deficit. It faces a projected deficit of approximately $25 million this year, which administrators estimate will grow to an annual deficit of $63 million four years from now. This projection is based in part on expectations of declining nonresident enrollment. However, there are reasons for optimism about UO’s future enrollment prospects. Initiatives are underway to revamp core education within UO’s College of Arts and Sciences. The Knight family recently committed $1 billion toward establishing a new College of Engineering at UO, a major investment in the University’s future. And Oregon State University, right up the road, is demonstrating that growth in nonresident enrollment is possible: this fall, OSU reported a 4.5% increase in nonresident undergraduates at its Corvallis campus.
The UO’s Mission Statement
“The University of Oregon is a comprehensive public research university committed to exceptional teaching, discovery, and service. We work at a human scale to generate big ideas. As a community of scholars, we help individuals question critically, think logically, reason effectively, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live ethically.”
QUICK ANSWERS
Who is United Academics? (The Owner of This Website!)
We are the representative of the faculty at the University of Oregon. We are a union affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers. We promote and defend quality public higher education by working together to uphold the University of Oregon’s academic and research priorities.
Where are you getting your numbers on UO’s finances?
UO is required to release certain financial data to the public on their Institutional Research website. This includes information for salaries, demographics, etc. Information about budgets and projections is found on the UO Business Affairs website. Some information about salaries of our comparators can be found in the annual Faculty Compensation Survey by the American Association of University Professors. Information about student enrollment is from UO Student Services and Enrollment Management.
We have done our best to provide accurate numbers and projections. However, UO purposefully makes it difficult to analyze the data they provide (for instance by using dashboards or providing data via pdf instead of in a spreadsheet), and so some numbers are necessarily estimates. As we get information to provide better estimates and projections we will update this page.