Portland State and Oregon leaders gathered on Oct. 2 in the PSU Native American Student and Community Center for the last leg of Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley’s Fight for College Affordability Tour.
“We all know that to have the American dream we need access to higher education. We need that ladder of opportunity, and having access to higher education is a key component of that,” said Oregon House of Representatives Speaker Tina Kotek.
Rep. Kotek said that access to higher education is a challenge for both Oregon and the nation, and cited tuition affordability as a priority for state legislature.
“We are going to look at higher education affordability next legislative session. We need to tackle that head-on because it really matters if we’re going to reduce income inequality in the state of Oregon,” Kotek said.
Merkley added that the legislative session would be considering a PSU proposed college finance plan, Pay It Forward. In the Pay it Forward model, students attend college tuition-free. In lieu of tuition, students pay a small percentage of their income for years after graduation.
“Since the institutions are state institutions, students need to be aware that come January the Oregon state legislature is coming to session again. They’re going to be considering a strategy for helping to fund education,” Merkley said.
The struggle between income inequality and inflating college tuition costs has created challenges for many students. Pam Miller, president of PSU’s American Association of University Professors, said that the cost of tuition and the tribulation of paying high debts with high interest rates deprives students of stability.
“On this campus, 4,235 students returned surveys about food insecurity just a few weeks ago. 59 percent of those respondents—which is 2,516 of our students on this campus— were found to meet the USDA definition of food insecurity. That means being unable to consistently access sufficient quantities and qualities of food,” Miller said.
Miller said PSU’s AAUP is concerned with the state of college life for students and she sympathized with students paying big tuition costs.
“The affordability of higher education was not apart of the equation when I considered going to college, even though my parents didn’t go to college. For my parents and me, what was most important was how I would do in college. From families being able to support young adults, to get degrees, to now students missing meals and needing to get food from the pantry on our campus. There really is something wrong with this picture,” Miller said.
AAUP’s concern for college affordability led to their support of Senator Merkley.
“I’m happy and thrilled to announce today that PSU’s AAUP executive council voted unanimously to endorse Senator Merkley for re-election to the United States Senate,” Miller said.
Senator Merkley confirmed that college affordability is a priority for him in Washington D.C..
“We should make sure that those loans from here forward are available at the same low interest rate that big banks pay when they borrow from the federal reserve. This is in keeping with the vision of education as a public good. It’s good for our children, but it also strengthens our future economy,” Merkley said.
Merkley encouraged students to vote and invited Marcus Sis, president of the College Democrats and an economics major at PSU, to speak about the importance of student civic involvement.
“We don’t have a U.S. senator take a leadership position on college affordability in Washington, that doesn’t happen all on it’s own. [That] happens because we turn out to vote,” Sis said.
Sis added that voting isn’t the only way students can be civically engaged.
“Make sure that you’re educating yourself about where the candidates stand. You should make the candidate work for your vote,” Sis said.
