Southern Oregon University is facing its third fiscal crisis in four years and was recently promised a $15 million bailout from the state legislature. One of the strings attached to the funding requires the university to quickly create a long-term plan for fiscal sustainability.
SOU is working with Deloitte Consulting to develop what the university calls its Path to Fiscal Sustainability. SOU’s Board of Trustees on Tuesday will hear a preview of the major findings and themes from Deloitte's study.
The consultant's work has included analyzing revenues and expenditures, as well as class sizes, workloads, possibly sharing services with other institutions and new revenue opportunities.
President Rick Bailey said in an email that Deloitte's suggestions are expected to include dramatic changes, including restructuring administrative services and re-focusing academic areas.
According to the email, Deloitte will release its preliminary report online on May 4 and will host an online presentation to explain it. The Board of Trustees will host a listening session on May 5, which will be open to the public.
The Board of Trustees will then make a decision on adopting the plan on May 8. The resulting changes at the institution must be completed by June 2027.
Because there is such a tight turnaround for major shifts, Bailey wrote, "there will be little to no opportunity to make wholesale revisions to the plan."
"It does not mean, however, that we cannot influence the implementation phase and how we make this transformation happen on the ground," he continued.
According to projections made earlier this year, SOU was expected to drop below its approved cash threshold of $12.68 million this year. The university projected that by the end of February 2027, it wouldn’t have enough cash to make payroll. University officials had also projected a shortfall of more than $14 million by June 2027.
This year's crisis is the latest in a period of recent turmoil for SOU. In 2023, the university cut almost 82 full-time-equivalent positions. Trustees then approved an additional plan in September 2025 to cut more than $10 million over four years. Between the two plans, Bailey said SOU has cut one-quarter of its faculty and staff.
This most recent plan "is intended to transform SOU into a smaller, sustainable institution focused on service to its students and attention to regional workforce needs," according to an SOU press release.
The university acknowledges "that our transformation to become a smaller, student-centered and regionally responsive university will be a difficult process," Bailey wrote in an email. "We will get through this challenging time and continue to provide life-changing opportunities for future generations of SOU students."
JPR is licensed to Southern Oregon University, but our newsroom operates independently. Guided by our journalistic standards and ethics, we cover the university like any other organization in the region. No university official reviewed or edited this story before it was published.
