UO leaders are justifying planned cuts by pointing to a national trend of budget shortfalls at US universities. However, despite UO’s own website listing 21 examples of other universities facing budgetary challenges, none of the other universities that UO compares itself to are currently considering the extreme tactic of eliminating tenured faculty.
In many cases, other universities are addressing much larger budget deficits. For example, the following 8 universities from UO’s list are all facing significantly larger deficits than the UO:
- Boston University (5% proposed reduction)
- Brown ($41.9M deficit in fiscal year 2024, 3.28% of total budget)
- Michigan State (9% cut over 2 years, including 6% this coming year)
- Stanford ($140 million in cuts, 1.4% of total budget)
- UCLA (operating loss of $144.2M, 1.3% of total budget)
- University of Chicago ($288 million deficit, 11.08% of total budget)
- UNC-Chapel Hill (~70M budget reduction)
- USC (~$200M deficit, 2.7% of total budget).
Despite facing a much smaller budget deficit (25 million or ~1.7% of its overall $1.45 billion budget), the University of Oregon is the only university on the administration’s list proposing laying off tenure related faculty through program reductions and eliminations.
NO OTHER R1 UNIVERSITIES HAVE ATTACKED TENURE THIS YEAR. The only confirmed case of mass tenure terminations at an AAU university was at Tulane in 2005-2006 following Hurricane Katrina. Attacks on tenure at AAUs, in general, are not widespread, with a few notable cases even being overturned in the ~2010s. In recent years, there are only two notable cases of attacks on tenure similar to what is happening at the UO:
- The University of Milwaukee laid off tenured faculty members in August 2024 when they closed their College of General Studies and eliminated an entire campus (a much more severe situation than the UO is now facing). Milwaukee leaders have faced intense backlash in the time since, and have been required to support all faculty who were laid off well into 2025.
- West Virginia University also laid off tenured faculty members in 2023 following an overall 10% enrollment drop (far worse than the national average or UO’s current situation). According to all reports, the university is “still bleeding faculty, administrators” as a result of this action, including several administrators who pushed cuts being forced out or choosing to leave the institution within a year.
At the same time that other universities are facing larger financial problems, they are using much more precise (and, often, less damaging) tools to make cuts. Other institutions have pursued financial solutions including:
- Decreases in graduate admissions
- Hiring freezes
- Voluntary buyouts
- Elimination of vacant positions
- Reductions in non-personnel spending
- Program eliminations not involving faculty layoffs
These rare cases where tenured faculty have been eliminated show us the likely results if UO leaders continue with their current plans. UO stands to lose more faculty and administrators, and face permanent reputational damages that may further impact enrollments. In this sense, making rushed cuts now may ultimately contribute to an even more vicious cycle of financial hardship for the UO in the end.
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