Spring Break
Budget trimming cuts deep for students
The battle is on: Joint Ways and Means co-chairs release budget trimming sections from Governor's proposed budget
Lauren L. Dillard and The Associated Press
Issue date: 4/9/07 Section: News
Brandi Freeman, a student at Southern Oregon University, said that at 23, she's already $50,000 in debt - with two parents incarcerated, she's been paying her own way since the age of 16.
And though she's been at the Ashland school already for five years, Freeman said she's not going to be graduating soon - budget cuts mean that there are fewer classes on offer, and they tend to fill up fast, making it hard for her to fulfill diploma requirements.
"We've had professors cut in nearly every program," she said. "But they are always willing to offer you more loans."
A recent Oregon Student Association survey of about 4,300 community college and university students found that about 30 percent said that being unable to get into the courses they needed had forced them to spend more time in college, ratcheting up their debt levels.
"I feel like I am in competition with my fellow students, vying for my professor's time," said Jessica Rojas, a student at Lane Community College in Eugene.
Lobbyists for higher education are zeroing in on a rise on the minimum tax charged to corporations - set at $10 in 1931 and unchanged ever since - as the likeliest way to backfill some of their funding. Originally, the governor's office had proposed splitting money generated from the corporate minimum between pre-kindergarten programs, community colleges and workforce development programs.
But signals from Kulongoski's office are now that they'll back putting the entire pot toward post-secondary education, advocates say, perhaps making a rise in the corporate minimum more palatable for business groups, who tend to be big supporters of higher education.
Getting money back into university construction and maintenance could be a harder sell. George Pernsteiner, the chancellor of the Oregon University System, said the $324 million set aside in the governor's budget for collegiate construction would have paid for much needed projects, like a new science building at Portland State, where he said classes are so crowded that some lab sections meet at midnight.
And though she's been at the Ashland school already for five years, Freeman said she's not going to be graduating soon - budget cuts mean that there are fewer classes on offer, and they tend to fill up fast, making it hard for her to fulfill diploma requirements.
"We've had professors cut in nearly every program," she said. "But they are always willing to offer you more loans."
A recent Oregon Student Association survey of about 4,300 community college and university students found that about 30 percent said that being unable to get into the courses they needed had forced them to spend more time in college, ratcheting up their debt levels.
"I feel like I am in competition with my fellow students, vying for my professor's time," said Jessica Rojas, a student at Lane Community College in Eugene.
Lobbyists for higher education are zeroing in on a rise on the minimum tax charged to corporations - set at $10 in 1931 and unchanged ever since - as the likeliest way to backfill some of their funding. Originally, the governor's office had proposed splitting money generated from the corporate minimum between pre-kindergarten programs, community colleges and workforce development programs.
But signals from Kulongoski's office are now that they'll back putting the entire pot toward post-secondary education, advocates say, perhaps making a rise in the corporate minimum more palatable for business groups, who tend to be big supporters of higher education.
Getting money back into university construction and maintenance could be a harder sell. George Pernsteiner, the chancellor of the Oregon University System, said the $324 million set aside in the governor's budget for collegiate construction would have paid for much needed projects, like a new science building at Portland State, where he said classes are so crowded that some lab sections meet at midnight.
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