University students, faculty and staff from across the state are rallying in front of the state capitol in Salem on Thursday to make Oregon stronger through increased funding and reinvestment in college education.
Rally organizers said they are using the event to push for increasing access and affordability to higher education by keeping tuition low, increasing faculty salaries, increasing funding for universities with growing enrollment and for funding university maintenance and construction costs.
The ASUO has set aside four buses that will transport students to the rally, said ASUO State Affairs Coordinator Emily McLain.
The rally will be held from 12 to 1 p.m. and will be followed by the Oregon Student Association’s Lobby Day, where students will meet with state legislators to pass out student “recipe cards” that list ways to prioritize access to college.
OSA spokeswoman Courtney Sproule said the combined rally and Lobby Day, which have been held on separate dates since 1975, present a united front to ask for the state to prioritize access to colleges and universities, which have seen a significant decrease in state support for colleges and universities since 1991.
“It will be a really visual event where students, administrators and staff can make a really loud cry for funding,” Sproule said. “I think it’s more crucial than ever that we create a huge presence on the capitol steps.”
McLain said the rally builds on the successes of the campaign to register and turn out students to vote in November 2006, which saw a doubling in youth voter turnout from 2002 to an overall 42 percent. She said it’s the students’ responsibility to keep higher education a top priority in the legislature.
“That’s really exciting for us to show that students cared in November, so now we need to build on that and show a really big visual of how much students care about affordability and accessibility to higher education,” McLain said. “It’s really important right now because this is one of the big moments for the legislators to be held accountable for the things they talked about in November.”
Gov. Ted Kulongoski proposed a $4.9 billion budget for the Oregon University System, an 11.4 percent increase in funding from the 2005-07 biennium. He also proposed keeping tuition increases limited at 3.4 percent a year, the same percentage as the growth in median family incomes.
Sproule said Kulongoski’s budget was a great first step for the universities, but she said the rally and Lobby Day would push for the community colleges’ request for $529 million for funding, up from Kulongoski’s $483 million proposal.
After the Thursday rally, McLain said there will be continued efforts to go to Salem and to keep students educated involved on lobbying for higher education.
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