State legislature approves $870 mil. OUS budget

Oregon’s seven public universities got a big break last week: the Oregon Legislature approved the most generous Oregon University System budget in years, easing the financial burden on students and allowing campuses to start repairs that have long gone unfunded.

The Legislature funded the Oregon University System (OUS) General Fund at $870.4 million, 23 percent more than the current biennium’s level of $706 million. The OUS capital construction budget increased over 36 percent to $561 million, according to the OUS Fact Sheet.

Of the seven universities in OUS, Portland State scored the largest single item in the capital construction budget, with $71 million for the Portland Center for Advanced Technology redevelopment project. PSU also received funds for seismic upgrades and renovation in the amounts of $29.2 million for Lincoln Hall and $26.3 million for Science Building 2.

PSU received $19 million to construct a Science Teaching and Research Center/Hazardous Waste Facility, $8.5 million to add on to the Peter Stott Center Gym, $1 million for telecom upgrades and $1.8 million to create the long-awaited Walk of the Heroines.

Advocates for higher education hailed the new budget, calling it a reversal in the trend of Oregon’s funding of higher education.

“After a decade of disinvestment in postsecondary education, the action of college students and allies led the 2007 Legislature to make postsecondary education a top state priority,” Courtney Sproule, communications director for the Oregon Student Association, said in a press release.

Although tuition is still increasing, the students’ share of higher education costs will drop for the first time since 2003. According to the OUS Fact Sheet, the students’ portion of the cost jumped from 41 percent during the 1999-01 biennium to 55 percent in the 2005-07 budget. In the new budget, students cover 53 percent of the cost.

More money in the operating budget has the potential to minimize tuition increases and round out other programs to support students. The 2007-09 budget devotes $10 million to increasing faculty salaries statewide, up from $1 million in 2005-2007. According to OUS, Oregon lags 17 percent behind the national average for faculty pay, meaning a raise or bonus may help retain-and attract-professors who would otherwise teach in better-paying states.