RE: What is Higher Education Worth?

Some recent events have gotten me back to thinking about the funding of higher education. I used to think about it a lot when I was at Vanderbilt, for it seemed to come up in every class. Most recently, we all saw the article in the O'Colly about OSU making a budget cut of 1.5 million dollars. I have a feeling that is just the first of more to come as the economy isn't about to recover anytime soon and the overall enrollment numbers for OSU are predicted to decrease due to a general population trend towards lower numbers of high school students in Oklahoma. At present, OSU gets most of its funding not from the state, but from student tuition and fees. Fewer students equals less funding for OSU.

My home state of Arkansas recently passed a state lottery to help fund higher education. That sounds good on the surface until you get to thinking about where most of that money will come from. Most of it will come from the non college educated poor and lower middle classes. If a state wants a good higher education system, why not just pay for it and invest in it with standard tax dollars. But instead, higher education is one area that state legislatures for some reason find easy to cut when it comes to decreasing funding. Some state universities with around just 10 percent state funding are state universities pretty much in name only.

I don't imagine any Arkansas or Oklahoma legislature member is reading this blog, but if they are, I want them to pay special attention to this paragraph. I work as an academic counselor here at Oklahoma State. In my four and nearly a half years here at OSU I have helped hundreds and hundreds of students leave here with a college degree. And that has been possible because the state of Arkansas gave me a scholarship to attend UALR and the federal government loaned me the money to attend Vanderbilt. I think society as a whole has gotten their initial investment in me back and then some. Something to think about when you decrease the next spending bill that comes up related to higher education.