OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGES & THE OREGON UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

• The Budgets: as with Head Start and the K-12 schools, the investment in our Community Colleges and the Oregon University System has been increased significantly this session. We have also made a tremendous new investment in financial aid for both part time and full time students. Again, we still have a long way to go to make up for years of damage done, but we are moving in the right direction.
• For Students: these funding levels will mean progress in both affordability of tuition and access to the classes they need. We have also passed SB 334, the aforementioned Shared Responsibility Model for the financial aid offered in the Oregon Opportunity Grants. In a nutshell, the Shared Responsibility Model will assist students of almost every economic level in meeting the financial challenges of higher education. Every qualifying student willing to work 15 hours per week during school will receive assistance, with a family share determined on a sliding scale, and federal and state funds helping to cover the remaining costs. This is an excellent step forward for students in our state.
  
  In addition, the 2007 Legislature passed SB 365, a bill that will help lower the cost of textbooks in Oregon, with strong bipartisan support. The bill will mandate transparency in textbook pricing so instructors will know exactly what their students will be paying for the materials for their classes, and it will outlaw the practice of “bundling” products together that require students to buy materials they do not need in order to get the book that is required for their class. This bill was brought forth and helped to pass by OSPIRG and the Oregon Student Association, and will help students throughout the state.
• For Community Colleges: at a basic operating budget of $501 million, the majority of community colleges in Oregon will be able to hold down tuition and address the needs of their students and their schools. This level of funding, however, still will require additional cutbacks at Central Oregon Community College, Lane Community College and Rogue Community College. While the cutbacks will be smaller than in the past few budgets, suffering further cuts after years of already increasing tuition and cutting programs is very hard for these three schools to bear. There is a budget note in the Community College system budget requiring the State Board of Higher Education and the CC presidents to come back to the legislature in 2009 with a new funding proposal to address the inequity in the current system.
• For the Oregon University System: an increase of 22% in our investment in our university system in 2007-09 will provide for continuing operating costs plus crucial additional steps, including:
  • $46 million to manage enrollment growth and provide access to classes students need to graduate in four years. As cutbacks have been made over the last decade, the number of years needed for a student to complete undergraduate work has increased to the point where it is common to take five years of undergraduate education. By moving back to provide a better chance to graduate in four years, students and their families will experience significant savings.
  • $10 million in faculty salary increases to strengthen our state’s ability to recruit and keep the top teachers in their fields. We have fallen far behind in this effort, and it is vital for Oregon to be competitive again.
  • $9 million for Oregon’s four regional universities (Western Oregon University, Eastern Oregon University, Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Institute of Technology). This targeted funding will provide a much needed boost to these schools that have been hard hit by tuition increases and program cutbacks, a clear statement of support for our statewide university system.
  • $5 million for the statewide extension services in agriculture and forest research.
  • A $26 million increase for Oregon’s Engineering Technology Investment Council, with a specific goal of increasing the number of engineering graduates in our state.
  • A commitment to performing overdue facility maintenance and to new capital construction at institutions throughout the state (full details during the last few days of the 2007 session).