“I was at the University of Oregon,” Schill said, “Go home tonight, (and) be happy because you’re not a public university in a state that doesn’t believe in higher education. This is a much better place to be.”
From Northwestern Univ’s student newspaper.
Well, we always knew Schill was slumming at UO on the way to something better. Did he leave UO better than he found it? I wouldn’t say so. Except for the Knight Campus — what a name! — the rest of the place is probably weaker.
That comment of Schill has been true for the last 35 years or so –
independent of who is governor of Oregon or who is president of UO. Its just a true statement. Oregon does not invest in higher education as important for the State.
Seems like a good time to mention that the voter registration deadline is this Tuesday.
Agreed. Nor does the State invest in K-12. Unfortunately, the Voters’ pamphlet barely addresses the subject. What a shame for all of us.
Funding for education is a complex issue, but oregon hardly ranks low nationally. As Dave’s Crockett said, be sure you’re right then go ahead link to state map of funding levels
https://www.learner.com/blog/states-that-spend-the-most-on-education per student.
Oldtimer, that source you link to is absolutely absurd in more ways than I have time to explain. Your homework: explain it to yourself, then get back to us.
thanks, HUB, clever retort. I’ve followed these state funding issues for decades. Answers depend on the question. All education, all higher ed including community colleges or not, and so on. My original response was only to a comment about k12, which overwhelms all the rest. Teasing out all the various components. From a single source is tedious, for reasons I don’t have time to share either, but If the question is how does oregon support education overall. Oregon does not rank particularly low in either NCES data or world population review data, which are all roughly consistent with the results in the quick link I posted. Here’s the world population report link, but if you have a more reliable source that offers a different conclusion, share and have a nice day. Cheers
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state
Oldtimer, I hate to tell you, the source you first posted is idiotic. Why do I say this? Look at the numbers in the various columns. One is for K-12 spending per student. Another is for postsecondary (higher) ed. A third column is total spending per student. And how do they get that figure? By ADDING the first two numbers. To repeat, this is IDIOTIC! Or maybe it is just INSANE. There are other problems, too, but I’ll just leave it at that.
as I said in a few days ago which now should appears as the post right after this reply:
For a proper comparison, I think you need to look over 20-30 years at a) state K12 funding, b) state community college funding and c) state Higher-Ed funding.
Because that sets the context.
There is also an important issue of the total education population in a. b and c – compared to the state’s population. But maybe I am just idiotic.
If I find the time, and if there is any real interest, then I will forward a report on to UOmatters.
Thank you for your opinion. Have a nice day
What I particularly love about that learner.com article is that the byline is Michael Brown, the CEO of Learner. His bio says he was a *math instructor* at Penn State University.
Wow.
https://www.learner.com/team/michael-brown
While, the source for the leaner.com ‘article’ is from a think tank of two.
https://educationdata.org/about
that seem to scrape data from NCES et al. without actually stating what that data is (e.g. undefined: year, pupil, spend, etc.)
https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics
State spending on education at all levels has to be integrated over
30+ years to understand it better. A single years snapshot can be misleading and indeed, Oregon has been doing better more recently.
Yes, oregon Ed funding has been on a roller coaster for decades, and any one year cannot capture the problems that instability has caused, and oregon’s recent reinvestment, while good, is misleading. good point.
Have you already forgotten what Berdahl and Gottfredson did to this place?
What they did to the place? I’d forgotten about Berdahl altogether! Thanks for the reminder.
You may have forgotten, but PERS remembers:
Name Monthly benefit Retirement date Retirement plan Months of service Retirement calculation method Final salary Annual benefit
BERDAHL, ROBERT M $11,665 2002-05-01 Tier One 230 $59,610 $139,979
Benefit as % of salary: 235%
True or not, what a slap in the face to the people he left behind.
He said something honest about UO. Ex-Presidents get to do that.
He could instead have talked about how well he was treated here instesd of gloating about having moved up. No class. Sort of reminds me of Lariviere’s cruelty.
Fair. And thinking about it more, perhaps this really is an invitation: He agrees! We’ve got issues!
The truth hurts.
That’s definitely a crummy comment, but my brain can’t help being drawn to the “in a state that doesn’t believe in higher education” part. Hard to tell intent in the statement (what with how mind reading is not a thing), but part of me at least *wants* to read that as more an attack on the state funding being so much lower than it should be.
Not at all trying to defend Schill, more thinking that reading it in this frame might identify a better place to go express frustration at. I’ve had *just enough* insight into some of the stupid arrangements of how leadership works to be torn about dealing with the leaders themselves, but no matter how I look at it, the structure itself needs a major overhaul.
I think you are correct in thinking it was a jab at the way the “State” does not value education means the Legislature, and governor.
The people and labor leaders or Oregon definitely value education.
I believe that we have (or had) some of the highest level of post secondary degrees over the age of 30, especially in the over aged 40 and retirees; however, the legislature has underfunded postsecondary for generations now, relying on prestigious imported degrees to fill out the brain gain quota. I have said this here many times Oregon (and Colorado) are superstars when it comes to the post secondary disinvestment, and wrote the handbook for other “States” to strive to achieve.
So yes Schill spoke truth. Sorry.
We could elect people who care. But we don’t. See therefore we don’t care.
All of you can go home and be happy you’re not in New Hampshire, which ranks around #72 of the 50 U.S. states in per capita state funding for higher education.
I taught at Northwestern in the early 1980s. Hated it. 70% of the student body voted for Ronald Reagan. Overprivileged, smug students. Froze my ass off in the winter from the winds off the lake. And you couldn’t even get a beer in Evanston – – maybe that’s changed. Go Ducks!
But on the plus side, back then you could drive south to the Checkerboard and listen to Buddy Guy. I’m not sure what kind of beer though, the waitress just said “Beer?” and we said “Yes Ma’am”.
Or, if you were at the *real* Chicago university actually located on the south side, and wanted a break from Jimmy’s Woodlawn tap where they served all manner of bad pilsners, you could take the very long and utterly freezing L+ train trip up to Evanston to get vegan food at Blind Faith. But no beer, because as noted it was a persnickety dry town up there.
I’m pretty sure there’s very few maga hats at any college north of Oklahoma.
Measured by public spending per full-time-equivalent student, Oregon compares pretty well: #38,048, which places the state in seventh place. That’s from the top, not the bottom. These figures include tuition payments. Exclude them, and Oregon ranks even higher, $23,212 for fifth place. The data are from 2019.
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/higher-education-expenditures
SP. This data?
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/higher_ed_table.png
It smells funny to me?
—
Here is another set of data–SHEF. Done in accordance with SHEEO standard and methodology. (It may not be correct but it is consistent between states and over the last 20+ years)
Perhaps a better data set than urban.org:
SHEF link here shows 2021 appropriations for all Oregon post secondary at 24, (use customization and turn off State Adjustments for all).
https://shef.sheeo.org/data-visualizations/figure-3-2/?report_page=state-funding-and-enrollment&modal=figure-3_2
Furthermore: you can customize it to view just 4-years which will put Oregon at the 41 spot in 2021 which is a better comparison as I think CC’s are also supported by property taxes approved by people not legislators. Table 3.2 and Figure 3.2A in that section are also interesting.
.
A history of state disinvestment seen in SHEF data? (After tax limits in early 90s) the spending on the university system was stalled and even regressed at times while students enrolled (FTE) spiked. From about 2003 to 2015 Oregon Colleges (CC) and Universities (OUS) were ranked in the bottom 10 state for spending per FTE and–If I remember correctly–there were reports that showed when just comparing appropriations/fte, for 4-years (OUS), the state was dead last a couple of times. It seems with enrollment drops, and perhaps some Federal Stimulus other states are catching up and beating Oregon.
https://shef.sheeo.org/data-visualizations/figure-2-1/?report_page=distribution-of-revenue&modal=figure-2_1&active_filters%5B%5D=HECA&search=State%20%3D%20'Oregon'&min_year=1980&max_year=2021&labels=true
Also:
https://shef.sheeo.org/data-visualizations/figure-2-3/?report_page=distribution-of-revenue&modal=figure-2_3&active_filters%5B%5D=HECA&search=FY%20%3D%20'2003'&labels=true
–
See Also:
https://www.oregon.gov/highered/research/Documents/Reports/SHEF-Oregon-Summary-FY2021-final.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Or:
https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2022/07/oregons-has-markedly-increased-spending-on-college-students-in-last-decade-but-still-lags-behind-national-average.html
Or:
https://shef.sheeo.org/state-profile/oregon/
.
And as a final tangential note: Damm New Hampshire, what happened in 2010?
https://nhfpi.org/blog/public-higher-education-funding-in-new-hampshire-trails-all-other-states-despite-recent-increases/#:~:text=New%20Hampshire%20has%20the%20lowest%20amount%20of%20State%20funding%20for,income%20during%20fiscal%20year%202022.
Thanks for these data – if you’d be willing to write a brief synopsis, I’d be happy to post it.
What happened in 2010 in NH was the first realization of the Free State Project’s plan…and a sloppy wet dream for most NH blue haired R’s in the legislature.
When a modern executive administrator says they support ‘higher education’, they’re thinking about something very different from any decent human’s understanding of the term.
Let’s include some other data on our former Prez’s comments. From August: https://dailynorthwestern.com/2022/08/11/campus/qa-president-elect-michael-schill-talks-transition-to-northwestern-previous-experiences/
‘…And then when I went to the University of Oregon, I learned a lot of things. The University of Oregon is about 18,000, 19,000 undergraduates and about 3,000 graduate students. So you’re really focused very much on the undergraduate experience. I’m going to take that with me here — the concern for undergraduates.
And what I also learned at the University of Oregon, which I intend to bring here, is the importance of inclusion. Students will do better, students will be happier, if they feel they belong in an institution. So you need to focus on that in the student experience.’
Schill: “Go home tonight, (and) be happy because you’re not a public university in a state that doesn’t believe in higher education. This is a much better place to be.”
Northwestern’s web site: “Tuition for the 2022–23 academic year is $62,391. Total expenses (including fees, books, room and board, transportation expenses and transportation) are estimated at $87,804.” (https://admissions.northwestern.edu/tuition-aid/)
The proof is left to the reader.
As a community member who attends UO cultural events, I noted a severe drop off of interesting and significant events under Schill. Nevertheless, he managed to show up at a lot of lectures and would insert himself into the narrative, often with long, self serving, smarmy speeches. I say, “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” and just hope that the next pres is a little more attuned to the idea that a university should be an innovative and stimulating place and less a series of monuments to the well heeled donor class, a place for service to athletics and a resource drain by coach and admin salary bloat..just sayin’. I found Schill pretty intolerable and his statement here reinforces that as pretty insulting and a petty backstab to those he was supposed to serve.
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