Higher Education at Risk in Oregon
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Del.icio.usIn Salem Oregon, lawmakers are trying to fix mistakes made by previous Oregon legislatures. It is the opinion of the current legislature that those in the past have dis invested in higher education for students in Oregon.
A delegation representing the Oregon University System made that case convincingly Tuesday in a meeting with The Oregonian’s editorial board.
As Chancellor George Pernsteiner put it, “Higher education and community colleges are the seed corn for the future economy of the whole state.”
That’s a powerful truth. Oregon’s northern neighbor, Washington State, learned it a long time ago and built its higher education system into an economic powerhouse.
Yet Oregon legislators, struggling desperately to plug a ghastly hole in the current budget, are showing discouraging signs of a willingness to return to the bad old days of treating higher education as a secondary priority.
Many Oregonians agree that higher education is the future of the state, and that the state educations budgets need to clearly reflect that. To address budget shortfalls in the past, the state cut higher education programs, reduced faculty and raised tuition.
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Editor: Melissa Steele is a freelance writer and focuses her research on funding for higher education. She is a graduate of UNLV and endeavors to keep her readers up to date with the most relevant education information.