Higher education is one of the most important predictors of future earnings, and those who work hard to get to college shouldn’t have to keep finding themselves in an ever-worsening tuition crunch. Nonetheless, tuition has been on a regular rise for many years, especially as state tax budgets have been stripped bare by years of irresponsible tax-cutting policies. Conservative legislatures and ballot measures have tended to gradually encourage the elimination of higher education from Oregon’s state budget, often with little respect to how those cuts would really affect services.
This historic context helps explain how the aspect of more tuition increases troubles us. A spokesperson for OUS said this week that students could expect a 7- to 9-percent increase in tuition next year to help cover the state budget deficit in higher education (state funding will decrease by about 30 percent over the next two years). This is among a series of changes we can expect with respect to our state government, which, like most every state budget in the country, is struggling with the hard choices that come with every recession. Oregon’s economy is among the hardest hit in this economic downturn, and as a result state revenues have slowed, prompting the need for massive budget overhaul.
Although tuition increases should generally be opposed, as they dramatically limit access to higher education, they might be temporarily justified in this case. It would be unfortunate to terminate programs that have taken decades to establish, or to lay off professors it has taken years to recruit simply in effort to weather the economic storms. A temporary tuition increase to help close the budget deficit is preferable to dramatically damaging higher education for the future. However, in light of this idea and considering the burden an increase will entail on many prospective students, making tuition increases permanent is not the best solution.
There must be vigilance on the part of advocates for student interests to ensure that raising tuition to subdue a ruinous deficit doesn’t become the norm in Oregon. Often, tuition increases that occur in times of diminished state revenue become a permanent barrier for students from lower-income families, who cannot easily afford higher education. Rarely is a tuition increase reversed, and now is good time to begin considering the prospect of planning for tuition decreases when state revenues recover.
It would be prudent if the Oregon State Board of Higher Education began exploring a new way to address this problem: a sunset provision, which would require the raised tuition to fall back to its normal level after a certain amount of time. Tuition increases are not ideal, but they may be preferable to tax increases in this economy, budget cuts resulting in slashing University services, or increased reliance upon private donors. But if tuition must rise, the state can and should plan for how it will reduce it again in several years, when the economy recovers.
Students and the state are the best financiers of higher education, because equitable education is essential to a productive and virtuous democracy. Putting the financing of education in the hands of the few and outside of the democratic process could potentially have dangerous effects on educational equity, and complete privatization would only raise further barriers. We have seen time and time again how these challenges can diminish the educational capacity of a university established to serve the public. And either approach, especially in light of temporary challenges, would simply be unreasonable at this point.
A permanent increase in tuition would also be unreasonable. Even if we do acknowledge the challenges the recession brings us in terms of keeping the state in the black, we should not allow our fear of falling revenues to justify permanently restricting the access of the public to the institutions that are designed to serve them. While the state will only have to face this recession-induced budget crunch for a year or two, students who are denied access to education because of high tuition costs might face diminished opportunities for the rest of their lives.
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