Oregon’s system of supporting higher education is clearly broken. As the May 15 Oregonian editorial (“The University of Oregon can’t keep going on this way,” The Oregonian, May 15) emphatically blared, “The University of Oregon can’t keep going on this way.” The University is proposing a bold new solution: “A New Partnership with the State.”
The University administration has recently released a proposal that would restructure how our University is governed within the statewide Oregon University System. The University would be governed by a Board of Regents and funded via a quasi endowment with the state legislature providing $65 million each year and the University matching legislature funds.
University President Richard Lariviere has proposed a creative solution to an alarming problem. Some details of the proposed plan deserve serious scrutiny; there are legitimate concerns about how this proposal will impact our state’s bond-debt ratio. However, as higher education continues to be less and less affordable to students in this state, the worst possible course of action would be to continue to do nothing and fail to fix this growing problem.
The ASUO Executive, Senate and University administration must come together to push for a solution that will meet the needs of University students for the next half-century. The work student leaders do in the next year will have a meaningful impact on students in the higher education system decades into the future.
We commend the new ASUO Executive’s commitment to advocating for students on a statewide level. It is time to turn that passion into a reality; we strongly ask the new executive to join us in solidarity in supporting a new partnership with the state in order to ensure that education equity and quality exists for students at this University long into the
coming century.
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Commit to higher ed and restructure University funding
Daily Emerald
June 2, 2010
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