Here's my theory for how the Arizona thing may play out.
llandz feel free to chime in. Note, this is a bit inside baseball for anyone who doesn't have a vested interest in this school, but I'm just gonna download as some of he mechanics may be relevant elsewhere.
I'm basing this on some research I've done and people I've spoken to as a parent with a kid halfway through his time there.
1- The University will scale back out of state aid significantly. Likely by something in the range of 40%. I believe they will also scale back in state aid but by a smaller amount, thinking more like 10-15%.
2- The university will raise tuition for incoming freshman next year, likely in the order of 5% and likely ~3% a year every year following (no more tuition guarantees beginning w the next class).
3- New hires will be frozen for all but critical functions and /or replacements. Replacement hires from this point on will likely be broight in at a lower grade than they currently are positioned at.
4- Departments will likely receive a budget cut in the 10-15% range moving forward. This is going be painful.
5- I do believe the program will cut ~4 sports. They carry 23 D-1 sports while most B-12 schools carry closer to 17. But echoing the comments above the big guns will be fine. Hoops, football, soccer, baseball. I dont see anything there. Golf is embedded in the school and the area around it. Think beach volleyball, triathlon, and possible some secondary sports that are lesser fits in the Big 12 than they were in the PAC.
6- I do believe that McKale and the Stadium will get naming rights. It's not impossible other buildings do as well albeit for a much smaller $.
7- They will likely lease unused land or property where possible. Not sure how much there is. I think it would likely be away from the primary campus space (they have property ALL over Tuscon and surrounding areas).
8- I believe there is hope that the Board of Regents may find a way to offer some measure of financial support, but likely we are talking about in the range of 10% of the total shortfall at most. I've heard varying theories about how the BOR will deal with this. Most say they will not support U of A with additional funding. Others say if U of A makes significant inroads they may find a way to reallocate some funds to assist.
Some of the above will be cripplingly painful, some will be merely annoyances.
This is all just my theory based on what Ive read and learned. Could be very wrong.
PS- The shame of this all is, if they had even a LITTLE more financial flexibility in the short term, the real play is to invest in and build ~4 more large dorms. U of A is NOT like Syracuse, which has plenty of dorms for people who want to live on campus (and are now going farther to ensure those who want to stay on NORTH campus can do so), and which allows them to mandate 2 years on campus and guaranteed revenues from that.Instead, U of A is BADLY under insofar as how many on campus rooms they have vs demand. I think I read they only have something like 10K beds on campus for nearly 45K, and even freshmen are not guaranteed housing, nevermind any mandates. But if they could get those beds from 10,000 to even 15K, and figure out a formula to fill them every year, that could be an extra $50 million a year based on the $10K we are paying per year for on campus housing.
It's an outlay up front, but if you have another few thousand beds to offer, you can mandate students live on campus for 1 or even 2 years and that is guaranteed revenue every single year.