Portland State University president Ann Cudd announced the planned elimination of two signature programs and reductions across seven departments Thursday. Fifty-two staff members received 12-month layoff notices as a part of the cuts, which Cudd said will save the university $16 million.

Thursday morning, Cudd also released a “Provisional Plan,” the next step in the university’s leaders’ effort to rescue PSU’s flailing budget. In that document, the school’s Conflict Resolution and University Studies programs are slated for elimination, a possible reduction of 26 American Association of University Professors-represented staff.

The latest plan includes tentative reductions in the Portland Center program for international students who study at PSU. University leaders are also proposing reductions across various academic realms. They include reductions in the professional education fields of Educator Licensure as well as Leadership, Learning, and Counseling. PSU proposes cutting liberal arts areas, such as of History, Philosophy, and World Languages and Literatures departments, as well as its School of Earth, Environment, and Society. These reductions total 26 positions represented by an educator union.

“Although PSU is in a financial position that dictates that we take urgent action, this action is not without vision,” Cudd said during media availability on Thursday morning. “We are aligning our programs and our offerings to the needs of our students and our region.”

Cudd said that the university is also closing a number of unfilled positions, including those left empty by retirements. Five other layoff notices were also given to staff members not related to Article 22. As of Thursday, university leaders say they’re able to save money by leaving open 48 full-time equivalent positions vacated through voluntary departures, such as retirements, though this number may change.

The significant cuts Cudd announced are part of a high-stakes effort to overhaul what was once Oregon’s largest public university. PSU administrators are working to close a projected $35 million budget deficit by the end of the 2026-27 school year. And university leaders have not shied away from the fact that in order to fill that gap, Portland State will have to become a smaller institution.

Oregon public universities consider controversial moves to achieve financial stability

PSU’s financial woes largely stem from years of declining student enrollment, increasing personnel costs and flat financial support from the state. The combination of these three factors are quickly becoming impediments for the state’s other public universities too.

Leaders of Portland State’s two-year restructuring effort, called Bridge to the Future 2.0, spent much of this school year evaluating its academic and administrative structures. The announcement is part of a process known as retrenchment that will allow PSU to lay off represented faculty.

The layoff notices and department closures sent to represented staff Thursday are still preliminary; beginning today there is a 30-day public comment period for staff to comment on PSU’s Provisional Plan. Cudd or a representative from her office intends to meet with each department facing planned reductions.

PSU officials say the final plan will be released in June with an update on the university’s deficit-closing plan at a Board of Trustees meeting June 16.

University leaders believe its planned strategic cuts will help the school get back on solid financial ground. Cudd said next steps include helping the community “heal” from the changes, which includes a cut to one of the university’s most lauded programs.

The proposed closure of University Studies provides the biggest cost savings to the university: $10,715,021. The unique, nationally-recognized 4-year program is a general education program that includes a final Capstone project where students address a real-world Portland problem. The program started in 1994.

“Its innovativeness has over the years gathered a lot of awards,” Cudd said. “But what we’ve also found over time is that it doesn’t serve our students all that well anymore.”

Portland State declares financial crisis, reveals plan to cut or reduce 19 departments

Cudd said the program is hard for transfer students to move into, and that the school is instead focused on a new model of general education. According to the Proposal Plan, PSU’s Higher Education in Prison Program, which is currently under University Studies, will continue. But she also said the reductions are part of the university’s goal to be an “urban research university” and fulfill its motto: “Let knowledge serve the city.”

“I don’t think we’re gonna change our brand or our culture so much as we’re really going to focus in on what we’ve always done very well, whether it’s our urban planning, our college of the arts, our engineering … the kinds of applied science and technology that really serves the city.”

According to PSU-AAUP, 37 of the staff laid off Thursday are non-tenure-track, two are academic professionals, and 12 are tenured faculty.

Jessica Rodriguez-Jenkins, AAUP Vice President of Grievances and Academic Freedom and a professor in the school of social work, called the layoff of tenured professors a “dangerous shift.”

“By utilizing Article 22, this retrenchment process, to bypass the protections of tenure, PSU is signaling that indefinite tenure, ‘permanent’ — the word permanent is [a] relative term,” Rodriguez-Jenkins said.

PSU-AAUP are calling for a one-year pause in the cuts. They’re skeptical that reductions will lead to growth and say the university should instead invest reserve funds in better connecting with school districts, employers, and community colleges.

“We’ve asked for a one-year pause in this whole process, no layoffs for a year … invest a mild amount, a small amount of reserves into enrollment, recruitment and to continue to grow what we’re already working toward,” Knight said. “Work with us in Salem to generate a political solution in which the state helps us to invest in enrollment, recruitment, and more that would put us on a self-sustaining footing.”

Faculty members also say university administrators could do a lot more when it comes to advocating for more state dollars for higher education. Oregon currently ranks 46th in the nation in per-student funding for four-year public universities, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

Knight called the reductions, including the end of University Studies, a “backlash” to the humanities.

“The University Studies program was a faculty-led initiative that organized, thought through, and carefully crafted a sound curriculum that focused on humanities education, focused on building students into the kinds of learners and the kinds of citizens that a liberal model of education imagines,” Knight said.

“It’s a further development of this sort of vocational demand in higher ed. It’s a pullback from commitment to full-time faculty, and it is part of that growth of the casualization of labor in higher ed.”

Uncertainty hangs over Portland State community as university moves forward with restructuring

Last month, PSU-AAUP took a vote of no confidence in Cudd’s leadership. Of the 67% of the unit who voted, 85% said yes. Other unions representing PSU staff also took votes, with 91% of Service Employees International Union workers and 97% of Graduate Employees Union workers agreeing with PSU-AAUP in lack of confidence in the university president.

“We are not lock and step with this new vision that President Cudd has been pushing forward,” Rodriguez-Jenkins said, reflecting a sentiment shared by students, faculty, and staff in survey results shared earlier this year.

In recent weeks, Portland State’s faculty union and local high school and college student activists from the Sunrise Movement rallied against the cuts on campus. PSU-AAUP are planning another rally for May 19. Some students demanded more accountability, transparency and decision-making power in the university’s restructuring process.

Other students worried about what a future PSU could look like.

“I’m scared that my education isn’t secure,” said Franklin High School sophomore Braeden Cain at a student-led walkout protesting PSU cuts on April 30. He said he’s already lost great teachers from Portland Public Schools budget cuts last year.

“If funding [for universities] is dwindling now, what’s going to be left for me a couple of years down the line?” Cain asked. “Will I get the same opportunities with a public college education?”

This year’s downsizing comes on the heels of $18 million in cuts from the prior school year. That process faced similar pushback from faculty and students.

For some faculty the announcement Thursday may feel like whiplash.

PSU-AAUP leaders say among those to receive layoff notices Thursday were eight educators who were laid off last year and then given back their jobs after an arbitration decision.

“To see them there again … I can’t express the pain and just the feeling of bleak sadness that we all feel about that,” Knight, the PSU-AAUP president, said.

“It’s hard not to look at the list and question retaliation,” Rodriguez-Jenkins added.

Nearly all of Oregon’s public universities reached financial tipping points this school year too. Oregon State University and University of Oregon are in the midst of belt-tightening budget plans. Southern Oregon University is considering deep cuts recommended by consultants in the wake of receiving a $15 bailout from the state to stay afloat for another year.

Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission is beginning a study looking at the viability of the state’s public higher education system. The report will include recommendations on how lawmakers can help make Oregon’s public universities more financially sustainable, including a possible directive to merge institutions.

Private institutions are taking steps to adjust to fiscal challenges hitting across higher education. Linfield University in McMinnville recently announced more details in its own plan to address a $5 million shortfall. In December, leaders of Pacific and Willamette universities announced plans to merge their institutions.

Eli Imadali contributed reporting to this story.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/14/psu-cut-legacy-programs-layoff/