Funding cuts at the University of Lincoln would be devastating for staff, students and the city, a trade union said.
The University and College Union (UCU) said it has been told the university aims to reduce budgets by 20%.
Owen Clayton from the UCU said staff were "shocked and quite scared".
The university said it was "looking to take pragmatic steps to reduce our cost base" but could not rule out redundancies.
It has just over 2,000 staff members and about 18,000 students.
"We've had bumper student numbers for about five years and the university finances, if you look at them from July, look quite good, so people were not expecting this," said Mr Clayton.
"A 20% cut to funding would have a huge impact. You obviously couldn't provide the same level of quality. You would have staff that were far more stressed and tired and that would impact on the experience the students were getting.
"I think some departments would struggle to stay open if the cuts were as large as has been suggested."
