OREGON
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
East Oregonian
A9
Oregon college spending up, but behind national average
By SAM EDGE
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon has clawed
its way out of the bottom of state
rankings for higher education
spending, but is still far from
reaching national averages for
per-student funding, according to
a national report.
The latest State Higher Educa-
tion Finance report, released in
June, shows Oregon’s state and
local governments appropriated
$7,395 higher education dollars
per student in fi scal year 2021, the
state’s highest per-student spend-
ing since 2001. That marks a 10%
increase in per-student spending
from 2020. Oregon is among a
minority of states where spending
has rebounded to pre-Great Reces-
sion levels.
But those numbers come with
a big caveat, said Ben Cannon,
director of the Oregon Higher
Education Coordinating Commis-
sion, during a Hunt Institute panel
on July 26. Student enrollment is
way down, Cannon said, which
skews per-student funding and is
undermining school budgets.
Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
Shadows fall June 24, 2022, on Johnson Hall on the campus of the Univer-
sity of Oregon in Eugene. The State Higher Education Finance report from
June shows Oregon’s state and local governments appropriated $7,395
higher education dollars per student in fi scal year 2021, the state’s high-
est per-student spending in 20 years.
Oregon also still lags far behind
the national average of $9,327 in
per-student spending, spends less
on financial aid per-student than
the national average and relies on
students to shoulder an above-average
share of higher education revenue.
“This is the story of mild gain,
but a long way to go,” Cannon told
The Oregonian. “When we look at
those increasing investments, we
see enormous remaining need.”
Less than a decade ago, Oregon
ranked among the bottom of states
for per-student spending in higher
education, after some of the steepest
budget cuts in the country following
the Great Recession.
The state has since made a 57%
increase in higher education spend-
ing per-student, eclipsing pre-2008
recession funding levels, Cannon
said. The latest report ranks Oregon
36th for per-student funding.
State legislators have been
upping the funding to higher educa-
tion over the past several budget
cycles.
Despite increases in state fund-
ing, Oregon students still pay an
outsized share of college revenue.
Across the country, student
tuition makes up about 42% of
higher education revenue, roughly
double the contribution that tuition
provided in 1980.
But Oregon is among 20 states
where tuition dollars actually make
up the majority of revenue. In 2021,
tuition dollars made up 54% of reve-
nue at Oregon’s public colleges and
universities. This is down from the
nearly 64% that Oregon students
shouldered in 2015, but far higher
than the percentage of revenue that
students contribute in neighboring
states. Only 35% of Washington’s
higher education revenue and 20%
of California’s revenue come from
tuition.
Students studying at Oregon’s
public universities contribute to a
greater share of school revenue than
those at community college, which
lean more heavily on state appro-
priations. Tuition revenue makes up
about 23% of revenue at commu-
nity colleges, and 69% at four-year
schools.
Oregon also comes up short
when it comes to providing state
fi nancial aid for students. Financial
aid allocations in 2021 amounted
to $574 per full-time student,
compared to the national average
of $921, according to the report.
Washington allocated more than
three times as much as Oregon in
fi nancial aid per full-time student,
at over $1,900 in 2021.
“Students in Oregon continue to
pay higher than average price tags to
access college and university, incur-
ring greater than average debt loads,”
Cannon said. “We have a lot of work
to do to expand the benefi ts of post-
secondary education more broadly
and equitably, and I think that should
be a real call to action for Oregonians
and Oregon policy makers.”
Do we have enough water in Oregon? Depends who you ask
By MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
BEND — Ask a few Orego-
nians if their state has enough water
to meet its needs and you may get
some varying answers. The diff ering
views on the question may be tilted
based on where people live, or even
their gender.
Roughly half of all Oregonians
(48%) agree there is enough water
in Oregon to meet needs while
37% disagree and 15% are unsure,
according to a survey conducted
by the Oregon Values and Beliefs
Center, a Portland-based nonprofi t.
This number has shifted over the
past 12 months — a year ago 56%
of Oregonians said their state had
enough water to meet current needs.
The survey also reveals a gender
divide when it comes to who thinks
there is enough water — 56% of
female Oregonians believe we have
enough water while 42% of their
male counterparts agreed with them.
Malheur Enterprise/Contributed Photo, File
Lake Owyhee in southeastern Oregon is a major source of irrigation water
for farms in Malheur County. A survey July 8-16, 2022, in Oregon shows
48% of Oregonians agree there is enough water in the state to meet needs
while 37% disagree and 15% are unsure.
Younger people tended to agree
with the statement more than older
people — 54% of those 18 to 29
agreed Oregon has enough water for
its needs, while just 39% of those in
the 45-to 54-age category agreed.
There was also a split of opinion
down party lines — 40% of Demo-
crats agree there is enough water to
meet the needs of the state while 62%
of Republicans agreed with the state-
ment.
Attitudes were based on where
people live, too — 54% of Willa-
mette Valley residents agree there
is suffi cient water while the number
was 47% in the Portland area and
46% in the rest of the state.
The online survey consisted
of 1,572 Oregon residents ages
18 or over. The independent and
nonpartisan organization said this
is a suffi cient sample size to assess
Oregonians’ opinions, generally,
and to review fi ndings by multiple
subgroups.
The survey was taken July 8-16.
The survey’s margin of error is plus
or minus 2.5%.
Survey results show Orego-
nians are split between those who
are willing to pay more in order to
support drought-related infrastruc-
ture improvements and those who are
not (49% to 40%).
About two-thirds of Democrats
say they’d be willing to pay more
(65%) compared to about one-third
of Republicans (35%). Independents
fell somewhere in between at 42%.
Across Oregon, there isn’t a strong
feeling that the agricultural commu-
nity is doing enough to conserve
water. Just 37% of Oregonians agree
that decisive action is being taken
while 34% said they don’t know.
When it comes to future needs,
36% of Oregonians think there is
enough water while 46% disagree.
A year ago, Oregonians were more
evenly split on this question, with
42% saying Oregon has enough
water for the future while 45%
said there’s not. This question also
revealed a gender split — this year
45% of men said there is enough
water to meet future needs while
just 28% of women agreed with the
statement.
The survey also revealed a polit-
ical divide over whether or not the
general public is doing enough to
conserve water during droughts. The
results showed that 41% of Republi-
cans said the public is doing enough
to conserve water while just 21% of
Democrats agreed with the state-
ment. In total (men and women), only
28% agree that the general public is
doing enough while 56% disagreed.
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