The state of Oregon is one of the worst places in the nation when it comes to funding for higher education. Over the past decade and a half, Oregon has tumbled into the bottom five on a list of states with the lowest per-student state support of post-secondary education. In 1985, 33 percent of the University’s funding came from the state, now state dollars only make up 14 percent of the University’s budget.
For the first time in almost a decade, though, there is hope for reversing this slide. Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s budget for 2007-09 includes a 12.5 percent increase for higher education, and a limit of 3.4 percent on tuition hikes. The state-wide budget for higher education: $827.1 million. Of that money, $8 million will be used for raises in faculty salaries, and about $7 million toward shrinking teacher-student ratios.
We applaud Kulongoski’s efforts in pumping desperately needed dollars into higher education, it’s about time Oregon’s leaders are making higher education more of a priority in this state.
The budget increase is badly needed for Oregon colleges and universities. Eastern, Western and Southern Oregon Universities are in such bad financial shape that Western Oregon University’s president last year announced his school was “broke.” In fact, the University of Oregon was the only school in the Oregon University System not to have run a deficit last year.
Nevertheless, the funding increase fills only part of the hole left by continual cuts to higher education over the years; it’s not the saving grace we and most university leaders were hoping for, but it is a strong start. The OUS asked for $161 million more than Kulongoski granted, hopefully at the next biennial budget the governor can find the money to fill that request.
It’s a wonder it took almost a decade for Oregon’s leaders to make a greater investment in higher education. Both of the state’s neighbors to the north and south are examples that investing more in higher education results in higher average incomes. In California, $19 billion will be spent on higher education in 2007-08, and the median family income there was $61,476 in 2005, about $9,000 more than in Oregon. In Ireland, the once impoverished nation has been transformed into an economic powerhouse in part by investing heavily into higher education; the nation now has the second highest gross domestic product in the European Union.
Another welcomed aspect of Kulongoski’s budget is the limit on tuition increases to 3.4 percent. This limit aligns itself with the projected annual inflation of median family income. From 1996-2005, tuition at the University of Oregon increased by an average of 6.02 percent each year, rising as high as 18.5 percent from 2001-02 to 02-03. That’s $2,289 more than we spent in 2005 than in 1996. Just imagine how many people chose not to go to college to avoid that debt.