Academic Affairs Financial Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Updates

Achieving financial sustainability requires a multi-year effort focused on alignment with our 2030 vision, recognizing that we must first address our structural deficit for the 2025-26 budget year.

As a division, we are taking multiple actions to align with our 2030 vision and address OAA’s $16 million financial sustainability target:

Increasing retention through student success efforts
Committing to curricular stewardship that improves student and faculty experiences and outcomes, and optimizes resource use
Altering administrative, academic programs, and service areas to sustain, reduce or invest for growth and efficiency
Managing vacancies that come from retirements and resignations
Leveraging market and curricular data, as well as guidance from our faculty experts, to improve our academic programs and offerings

Here you'll find progress updates from Academic Affairs. To learn about PSU’s campus-wide strategic pathway to financial sustainability, visit PSU’s Bridge to the Future website. Students can read about what to expect from the Bridge to the Future plan on PSU's student-focused webpage.

INCREASING RETENTION THROUGH STUDENT SUCCESS EFFORTS

The Student Success Strategy has a goal to increase Fall to Fall persistence for all undergraduate students from 83% to 85% by 2029. Current year improvements in retention would be reflected in the enrollment forecasts and target increases can be captured as revenue growth in the financial sustainability plan.

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COMMITTING TO CURRICULAR STEWARDSHIP

We are working to ensure that the courses we offer support degree progression, are aligned, and maximize the resources to support our curriculum and academic programs.

Summer Course Planning

Academic leaders are collaborating to improve degree pathways for current and incoming students by leveraging summer term to increase the availability for high demand and bottleneck courses to support timely degree progression. Our focus includes identifying crucial courses that impede degree completion, leveraging available financial aid, and creating clear pathways for both continuing and stopped-out students.

Course Management

Academic unit leaders, with support from the Office of Academic Affairs, are identifying courses and curricular pathways that overlap; that may over or under enroll, that have high rates of D grades, F grades, or withdrawals (DFW rates), that demonstrate equity gaps in completion, and that inadvertently create barriers to graduation for our students.

Improving the Scheduling Grid

Our new Course Time Grid will launch in Fall 2025. It is the product of a comprehensive review involving over 3,000 faculty, students, and staff. The optimized time grid marks a great step forward in our efforts to create clear educational pathways for our students. Maintaining a consistent schedule across the university reduces scheduling conflicts for students and faculty, and promotes optimal classroom utilization.

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ALTERING ACADEMIC PROGRAMS AND SERVICE AREAS

In consultation with department members and with support from the Office of Academic Affairs, college/school administrators and department leaders are reviewing program and course data, then identifying ways to improve curricular/ and co-curricular opportunities for our students

Academic Units

Financial sustainability targets for academic units guide the review of academic programs, and include both cost savings and revenue generation opportunities. Each of our colleges and schools have unique student enrollment, types of programs, pedagogical requirements for instruction, and faculty workload expectations; all of which plays a role in how they can contribute to sustainability.

Each school and college conducted a comprehensive analysis of their programs' performance, operational efficiency, and growth potential, engaging faculty and staff throughout the process. Based on this analysis, deans worked with academic leadership to develop plans that identify key areas for savings and revenue generation by adjusting for growth, curricular stewardship, and carefully managing vacancies that occur through retirements and resignations.

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ADJUSTING FOR GROWTH

Several schools have found ways to increase their revenue without needing additional resources. Some units will generate new revenue by growing enrollment using their current resources.

Other units will boost revenue by strategically reallocating their existing resources - for example, by adding course sections or adjusting class sizes to help students progress toward graduation more efficiently.

CURRICULAR STEWARDSHIP

Schools and colleges identified programs estimated to be offering courses that exceed instructional demand; programs they are considering for alteration, moratorium, or elimination; and other savings opportunities by reviewing course releases, overloads, and operational expenses.

All continue to review their degree requirements to look for ways to support improvements to student degree progression and completion.

MANAGING VACANCIES

This Fall, we offered a one-time cash incentive Retirement Incentive Offer (RIO) to eligible tenured and continuously appointed faculty (funded by one-time sustainability funding from the HECC). 32 faculty accepted the RIO and shared plans to retire on or before July 1, 2025. As retirements occurred, schools and colleges identified if/how they would replace and if this would result in savings.

To minimize the impact on current employees, current and upcoming vacancies will be used to support our financial sustainability efforts.

Academic Support Units

All academic support units are analyzing their academic services to look for adjustments that achieve savings. These units include the Office of the Provost, Office of Academic Innovation, Office of Global Engagement and Innovation, Library, Student Affairs, and Student Success areas, including Advising, Career Services, the Learning Center, the Office of Student Success and the Registrar.

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LEVERAGING MARKET AND CURRICULAR DATA

The Academic Program Revitalization Data Analysis team worked throughout Summer 2024 identified data sources and tools to help guide the analysis of our academic programs. A data open house and town hall meeting held in September 2024 provided opportunities for PSU faculty and staff to learn about and discuss this data and the overall financial sustainability planning process. These tools and training were provided to department and college/school leaders tasked with carrying out the review of academic programs.

Data Sources

Gray Decision Intelligence (Gray DI) Program Markets, Economics, and Outcomes data
AdAstra and Academic Planning for Equitable Success program data
The Student Success Dashboard
Enrollment trends through Cognos and Tableau Dashboards
Course enrollment history and trends through Cognos
Observations from faculty and students

Data Informed Decision Making

Academic units based their planning on thorough analysis of provided data sources, including Gray DI analytics, which provided insights into program performance and growth potential, as well as enrollment trends and operational metrics. By combining these different types of data, units could make informed decisions about where to reduce costs and where to invest for growth, while maintaining their focus on academic quality and student success.

Workforce Adjustments

All workforce adjustments are made in accordance with the rules, processes, and requirements of collective bargaining agreements between PSU and our academic unions.

On October 15, non-tenure track faculty whose positions were being considered for termination received a preliminary alert that they may be impacted by reductions. These notices are part of the agreed-upon contractual process with the AAUP that PSU must follow.

On December 13, 17 non-tenure track instructional faculty members were notified of layoff due to changes in their departments’ programmatic and curricular needs. These are our valued colleagues and friends and each notice has a profound impact on our community. Their positions will conclude at the end of this academic year, with notice provided now — six months in advance — in accordance with the faculty collective bargaining agreement.

Shared Governance

Any program moratorium or elimination initiated by a department or unit will follow PSU’s shared governance procedures. Proposals for program moratorium or elimination that are submitted by departments or schools/colleges for review must include the impetus for the moratorium or elimination describing the impact on students, faculty, and staff, and a completion plan (teach-out) that ensures all students currently in the program have the ability to complete their degrees without undue hardship.

On February 21, the Office of Academic Affairs, Office of the President, and Office of Research and Graduate Studies provided answers to questions from PSU’s Faculty Senate on our financial sustainability process, impacts we’ve accounted for, and the timeline for program alterations.

Please contact oaarecep@pdx.edu with any questions or requests for assistance.

Page updates:

February 24, 2025 to include curricular stewardship updates and details on school/college processes.
February 4, 2025 to include updates on improving the scheduling grid and summer course planning.
January 6, 2025 to include details on school and college financial sustainability planning processes.
December 20, 2024 to include updates on Academic program review, Improving the Retirement Experience, Workforce Adjustments, and Reinventing Summer.
November 21, 2024 to include details on the program review and financial sustainability planning processes undertaken by schools and colleges.
November 5, 2024 to include a video presentation on the review process for Academic Programs and Service Areas.
November 4, 2024 to clarify planned Next Steps and include PSU's Principled Decision Making Framework.
October 29, 2024 to include details on school/college financial sustainability targets, tools used by academic leaders to review programs and support services, and the faculty Retirement Incentive Option.