Interesting article - thanks for sharing!
Geology/geophysics enrollment goes up and down with the oil market and there is a research poster ironically on that topic posted in the Halbouty Geosciences Building (home of the geology/geophysics department and originally home of the petroleum engineering department) at TAMU. They merged the College of Geosciences in with many other art/sci majors 2 years ago to form the Arts and Sciences College which was an extremely unpopular move to students and faculty. It doesn’t seem that eliminating a minor in geophysics (for example) would result in any cost-savings when there is a geophysics major. You would think that an oil-loving state like Texas would like to keep pathways that allow people in other majors to obtain minors or certificates in things they may be interested in to set them apart for those interested in an industry so historically essential to the state. I imagine with the setting of “minimum numbers” that a number of programs may have been collateral damage to whatever the goals were in that exercise.