Baylor University said Tuesday it hopes to cut $65 million to $80 million from its proposed $750 million budget for the fiscal year beginning June 1 and announced construction delays for a welcome center and a new basketball arena.

University president Linda Livingstone said campuswide cuts will include benefits and compensation and, for the athletic department, work on the proposed $105 million Baylor Basketball Pavilion announced in 2019.

“We need to make some immediate and difficult decisions to address the serious financial realities we face in the months and potentially years ahead,” Livingstone said in a video message.

Livingstone said architectural and planning work will continue on the arena and the $60 million welcome center, on which ground was broken in January.

Regents last November approved $8.6 million for planning and design work on the 7,000-seat arena that will replace the Ferrell Center as Baylor’s basketball arena, and work in those areas will continue. All other major capital improvement projects will be postponed.

The Ferrell Center was scheduled to be renovated for volleyball, acrobatics and tumbling when the new arena was completed.

A Baylor spokesman said the athletics department also will be affected by a hiring freeze, potential layoffs and cuts in operating budgets. No decision has been reached, he said, on potential salary cuts.

According to the Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act website, Baylor had athletic department revenues and expenses of $101.2 million in 2018-19.

Also Tuesday, the University of Cincinnati dropped its men’s soccer program, the second major college program to be cut since during the COVID-19 pandemic. Old Dominion dropped men’s wrestling in early April.

USA Today, meanwhile, reported that the University of Arizona athletic department has frozen spending, hiring and raises after projecting a $7.5 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year ending in June.

In addition, Yahoo! Sports reported that the NCAA Group of Five conferences has asked the NCAA to consider financial relief that could include elimination of postseason conference tournaments and reduced schedules for non-revenue sports.

The letter from the American Athletic Conference, which includes the University of Houston, Mountain West, Mid-American, Sun Belt and Conference USA, which includes Rice University, also requested “temporary relief from regulatory requirements for a period of up to four years,” Yahoo! Sports reported.

Relaxed requirements could include efforts to drop below the current Football Bowl Subdivision requirement of 16 varsity sports, but Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson told Yahoo! that the intent was to “reduce sports without eliminating sports.”