Did you know that our state spends more money on the imprisonment of Oregonians than on the higher education of Oregonians? According to a report by Public Administration Resources, ours is one of only a handful of states that spends more on prison than on higher education—approximately 30 percent more.
That gives us some perspective on our legislature’s priorities.
In the last 20 years, the state of Oregon has shown a significant lack of support for higher institutions of learning, but discovering that more of our tax dollars go toward incarceration than education is shocking. One shudders to think what the long-term cost of this will be.
It used to be that the state paid for 75 percent of a student’s education. Now, in 2012, it’s almost the reverse; students are expected to pay 61 percent of their university costs. And it’s not getting any better. In a recent statement, PSU President Wim Wiewel highlighted that, last year, “the legislature cut state funding for PSU by $24 million [for the next two years],” and, in February of this year, “cut an additional $6 million.”
The entire country is in an economic slump, and every state’s budget is lean—in some cases, downright emaciated. Yet if we examine what our legislature is forking out for the education of citizens who will take Oregon into the future, we consistently lag behind the national average.
Portland State is feeling the pinch and, according to The Oregonian, is particularly vulnerable, as it historically has had very limited private support. As a result, layoffs within the administration and staff have begun.
Last week, Wievel announced an early retirement incentive package for employees 55 or older.
Seeing as 50 is the new 30, it’s unlikely that many faculty members will opt for this route, and it’s a shame they should even be asked to consider it at a time when many find themselves at their professional peak.
And it’s not like they are exactly enjoying bountiful spoils either. So we wouldn’t necessarily be saving much if they did retire. According to a report by Oregon State University, professors at PSU receive anywhere from 10–17 percent less pay than comparable institutions. This does not exactly make the university a job-hunter’s paradise, which presents a significant future hiring dilemma.
Combining all this with a statistic in a 2009 report by former University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer that only 28.8 percent of Oregonians between the ages of 25 and 30 have a bachelor’s degree, something smells rotten—and it’s not Denmark.
How does the state expect to remain competitive on a national and global level when education trends are moving in the opposite direction? How is PSU supposed to manage its significant responsibility to provide metropolitan university access when it has to rely on out-of-state students’ tuition to keep it afloat? That’s not sustainable.
What can be done? In a recent open letter to Wiewel in The Oregonian, PSU assistant professor Jennifer Schuberth suggested that the university’s hair-brained proposal to invest in the Oregon Sustainability Center should be the first project to strike off its to-do list.
She further questioned why the number of administrators and their respective salaries have increased at much higher rates than full time faculty and why the school’s sports programs continue to be funded when they lose over $1 million a year.
These are good questions. In hard times, we all need to tighten our belts, and PSU’s spending decisions should not escape close scrutiny. Yet this is not the underlying problem.
It hardly seems right that we should be nickel-and-diming programs and salaries that essentially constitute a drop in the bucket of a much deeper problem. What will be next? Should we cut our music programs because they’re not lucrative enough?
No, the solution has to be broader than that. This is where the state needs to step in and take back the responsibility it relinquished years ago. It needs to start giving its state university the support it needs (and deserves) to provide a quality and affordable state education.
Either that, or we should just be Portland University.
Perhaps it can begin by redistributing the millions being spent on locking people up and using that for liberating minds instead. If the legislature is putting its money where its mouth is, then it has practically swallowed the prison system whole and spat out higher education. That is a dangerously disproportionate meal.
We need an overhaul of procedures put in place in 1994, when Ballot Measure 11 was voted into law, establishing mandatory minimum sentences for a wide range of crimes. This meant that youth aged 15 and over were automatically sent to adult court if they were charged with any of these crimes. This has created a largely one-size-fits-all scenario, meaning fuller prisons and, ultimately, more tax dollars to cover the costs.
Denise Welch, communications director for the Partnership for Safety and Justice, points out that since the measure’s passing, Oregon has built four more prisons and expanded five others in order to facilitate more prisoners. She said, in an interview with Oregon News Service, that if even a fraction of these dollars could be used for preventative services, it would be “a much more cost effective approach to increasing public safety.”
So, rather than prioritizing old, expensive systems of incarceration, the state’s focus needs to be on making education more viable for everyone. Would this not be the best form of prevention in and of itself?
Studies have shown that, on average, the more educated people are, the less likely they are to end up in prison—it’s common sense.
Education cannot be second on the list. The future of our state depends on it.