When Southern Oregon University students returned to campus for the 2025-26 academic year, they were met with major cuts to academic programs, staff, and campus resources. Among the most visible changes at SOU, the university has reduced its previous 38 majors and 35 minors to 27 majors and 23 minors.
Eliminated majors include Chemistry, Financial Mathematics, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, International Studies, Management, Mathematics, Mathematics/Computer Science, Power and Politics, Spanish Language and Culture, Sustainable Tourism Management, and a graduate program in Outdoor Adventure and Expedition Leadership.
Eliminated minors include Early Childhood Development, Esports Management, Ethics, International Studies, Latin American Studies, Management, Marketing, Philosophy, Rhetoric and Reason, Social Sciences, Special Education, and Tourism Management.
“According to my advisor, I’ll still be able to finish my business management degree, even though the major has been dropped,” said SOU sophomore Katlyn Carnes.
The final resiliency plan includes 70 employee reductions, comprising 28 faculty reductions, 28 unclassified reductions, and 14 classified reductions. Some of these reductions have been achieved through a procedure called Exigency, by which an institution in financial crisis can lay off tenured faculty.
SOU’s athletic department has also been affected, as the plan proposes a reduction of about $1 million reduction over the course of the next three years. The athletics department hopes to make up much of that shortfall by seeking external funding.
Carnes remains confident that she will be able to complete her degree. However, she expressed disappointment over a concurrent change in the leniency amount for end-of-term bill payoffs.
When Carnes entered the university, she was allowed to have an outstanding balance of $3,000 on her account and still register for the following term. However, as the 2025 fall term begins, incoming freshmen are not given any leniency on outstanding balances. Everything must be paid off to register for the following term.
According to Mary Katie Brown, Executive Assistant in the president’s office, the threshold will stay the same for all students in the year they were enrolled. For example, all sophomores will continue to have a $3,000 threshold, and new incoming first-year students who have just started will now have a $0 threshold.
This practice is consistent with the other Oregon public universities. Until recently, SOU was the only one to allow registration with an account balance, but we have since started to decrease the threshold for each incoming new class.
Though the new budget plan might seem extreme, President Rick Bailey told Ashland.news that the budget cuts are needed to ensure the survival of the university.
“There are 60 higher ed institutions in this country in the last five years that have closed,” President Bailey said, “and all of them closed for the same reason, and that is because they didn’t respect the gravity of the financial challenges that they were facing. I don’t want that to be SOU.”
Story by Sukhprit Kaur/The Siskiyou
