Students at Oregon’s Public Universities are Paying Record Tuition and the Schools Want More Money From the State
“All seven of Oregon’s public universities have announced tuition increases for the next school year”
This doesn’t sound sustainable, does it?
The Oregon Capital Chronicle reports:
Oregon public universities ask state for more funding as students pay record tuition
Officials from Oregon’s seven public universities say they need more than $1 billion over the next two years to maintain services amid inflation and to avoid deep cuts and layoffs.
That’s $100 million more than funding the state’s seven universities received in the last biennium for general support.
At a public hearing of the Joint Subcommittee on Education on Wednesday, Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey told lawmakers that the current funding level will not be sufficient for the schools in the next biennium given inflation.
“This means that students will have to fund inflation on the majority of our budgets,” he said.
University administrators have begun restructuring and considering layoffs amid an expected $5 million deficit for the coming school year.
All seven of Oregon’s public universities have announced tuition increases for the next school year, in a regular pattern of annual increases in tuition during the last two decades. None in the upcoming school year is raising tuition above 5%, which would require approval from the Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
Oregon has more than 78,000 full-time students at its seven public universities – Eastern Oregon University, Oregon Institute of Technology, Oregon State University, Portland State University, Southern Oregon University, University of Oregon and Western Oregon University.
Their tuition covers 50% or more of university costs, one of the highest proportions in the nation, according to a recent report commissioned by lawmakers from the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, a nonprofit think tank in Colorado. About 25 years ago, the state paid for up to 75% of the cost of each full-time employee at a university. Now, it pays for about 50% or less, researchers found.
The state’s per-pupil funding for full-time college students is about $5,600 annually, around $3,000 less than what California and Washington provide.
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Comments
Very happy my kids graduated UO 25 years ago when the school still taught.
Someone is playing silly buggers with the numbers.
They say they need a $1B which is $100M more than they received. So $900M. The states website adds in pt and grad students to make full time equivalent number of 97k students.
That’s $9,300 per fte student not $5,600.
But if they need to cut, let’s start with DEI and CRT. Let’s insist that professors be full time like students and teach at least 12 hours a week. Grad assistance only for over 200 undergrad or 100 grad students.
They need to get rid of administrative overhead, to start with.
Have all the kids claim to be homeless and then the $$$ will just come flooding in from Salem.
Illegals still getting “free” education?