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The purse string keeps getting tighter at public universities as South Carolina’s budget faces a looming shortfall.

The University of South Carolina is now feeling the pinch as they deal with nearly $40 million in cuts.

"Every university in the United States of America and in the state of South Carolina, public and private are going through the exact same thing,” USC President Harris Pastides said.

School officials are now faced with tough decisions.

“We will not be able to re-hire many of the adjunct faculty and other staff positions,” Pastides said.

The school is eliminating more than 100 teaching positions and 200 staff positions. As the school sheds teaching positions, that means some elective courses will be scratched for the spring and summer semesters.

Other public universities like Winthrop and Clemson are using employee furloughs to free up some cash. If USC employees took a week off without pay, it could save the school an estimated $9 million, but Pastides says that course of action isn’t the right fit at USC.

"I believe furloughs disadvantage the people at the lower ends of the economic ladder unfairly and we did not want to do that, and that doesn't mean that we will never have a furlough but I certainly didn't want to resort to it,” Pastides said.

The university is also delaying an overhaul of their internal technology system to save money. Officials haven’t ruled out closing down institutes and other campuses to make up for future budget cuts.