It’s about time. Enrollment is declining. They should be cutting back staff. Also, as someone who has spent some time on the UWO campus, there is plenty… PLENTY of fat to trim. Note to UWO leadership: if you make small reductions as you go based on actual conditions and future projections, you won’t have to make big reductions all at once.

UW-Oshkosh plans to cut about 200 non-faculty staff and administrators this fall, while furloughing others, UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt said Thursday, as the university faces an unprecedented $18 million budget shortfall. The cuts amount to about 20% of university employees.

 

“It is no longer sustainable for us to operate without dramatic reduction in expenses,” Leavitt said in an email to employees.

 

Administrators referred to a “perfect storm” in conditions that have led to budgetary issues: a decline in the number of high school graduates choosing to go to college or university and declining state support for the University of Wisconsin System leading to an over-reliance on tuition revenue.

 

[…]

 

Oshkosh is the third largest of the 13 UW System campuses after Madison and Milwaukee. Its fall 2022 enrollment was 13,714 students, or about 700 fewer than a year before.