Ever since the Cascades Campus of Oregon State University was founded in 2001 it’s been treated like the ugly stepchild of the state higher education system – unwanted, undernourished and unloved.
Now, with the economy still tanking and a budget shortfall of more than $4 billion looming over the next two years, there are those in the state legislature who want to kick the stepchild out of the house. That would be a huge mistake, both now and in the long run.
Although so far it hasn’t lived up to the early enrollment projections – in part because the state provided only half as much money for it as it originally promised – OSU-Cascades already is giving hundreds of Central and Eastern Oregon students a higher education opportunity they probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
OSU-Cascades currently enrolls the equivalent of 300 full-time students. There’s been a 117% increase in enrollment since the college’s founding, and enrollment for the spring term is up 18% over the fall term. There are 200 students now at Central Oregon Community College who want to enter OSU-Cascades next fall to complete work toward their bachelor’s degrees.
What’s even more important, OSU-Cascades opens the higher education door to many people for whom distance and/or tuition costs would otherwise keep it barred. It costs half as much to complete a bachelor’s degree at OSU-Cascades as to do it at OSU in Corvallis. According to President Becky Johnson, more than half of the students at OSU-Cascades are the first in their families to go to college.
Looking further down the road, everybody agrees that Central Oregon needs to develop a more diversified and sustainable economy, and OSU-Cascades could be the cornerstone of it. Employers who pay living-wage jobs don’t locate in a place that doesn’t have a well-educated workforce and doesn’t offer education opportunities for their employees and their children.
Sen. Margaret Carter of Portland has made it no secret that she never wanted OSU-Cascades in the first place, and she’s the leading advocate for killing it off. She argues that it’s better to eliminate one of the state’s eight campuses than to weaken all of them with drastic budget cuts.
That’s a short-sighted attitude. Shutting down OSU-Cascades would save money now, but it would throw away a valuable investment. Central Oregon already is a major population center, and when the recession eases it will be growing again. Sooner or later the state higher ed system will need a four-year institution here. Why not build on what’s here now instead of tearing it down and having to rebuild from scratch later?
Central Oregon’s legislative delegation – Sen. Chris Telfer and Reps. Gene Whisnant and Judy Stiegler – are fighting hard for the survival of OSU-Cascades, along with State Treasurer Ben Westlund. We hope they’ll be able to persuade their colleagues to use a scalpel to make budget cuts equitably among the state’s colleges instead of using the guillotine on OSU-Cascades – a drastic move that would hurt Central Oregon now, and the entire state in the end.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.
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Hi there…This is a great strategy to keep out us “evil Californians”. I’ve been vacationing in Bend for over 30 years and my wife and I have considered retiring there. When OSU-Cascades opened up a few years ago that cinched it for us. It added the last element to Bend we were looking for. My wife is in education and it is something that is important to both of us. We even planned to take courses there and maybe even apply to teach courses.
The OSU-Cascade campus is critical to central Oregon…now more than ever. These are tough times all around and many young adults (and some older too) are going to school or back to school to improve their skills and knowledge. Shutting down education is exactly the wrong move. I understand budgets need to be balanced. A wiser move would probably be to spread the pain around rather than hit one area (Central Oregon) so hard.
I have been reading that Bend’s unemployment rate is very high because of the real estate bust. The article is absolutely correct that Central Oregon needs to diversity its economy and not just depend on housing and tourism. An education system (from K-12 to college) will be critical to giving Central Oregon the ability to attract good businesses and diversify.
The point that OSU-C President Becky Johnson made about one-half the students being the first in their families to attend college is such an important point. Local colleges provide opportunities and open doors for young adults that would otherwise not be available to them. 4 year public colleges are a bargain compared to private universities, but still out of the reach of many families. It is not the cost of the tuition at public universities. Rather it is the cost of living that can make it prohibitive. Local universities where young adults can commute from home may be the only viable option.
Im paying these guys a fortune, and so are all the other students. Wheres my money going if enrollment is full? how do they still not have enough money?
Student guy, education will NEVER EVER have enough money. This nation has been shoveling money into education like coal into locomotive for over two decades now. It goes directly into lobbying efforts to get more money. It just stays circulating at the top of the pyramid to protect excutive level jobs and never gets to the student classroom level. Education funding is one of the biggest shams perpetuated on the American taxpayer. You hear the same arguments over and over again for school funding….children are our future, do it for the children, vote yes for kids, etc. Just ask a school kid a basic question about American history. You’d be amazed how little they know.
I will be graduating from OSU-Cascades in the fall with a tailored bachelors degree that allowed me to study abroad, which I am doing right now. Without OSU-Cascades, I wouldn’t have been able to really get a bachelors degree, let alone study abroad, because of the cost of moving to Corvallis or Eugene and paying the tuition there on top of living expenses. My future plans were to return to Bend (after two more years teaching English in France)and get my Masters in Teaching offered there. I don’t know what I’m going to do if they shut down Cascades. I think it would be a huge mistake for the CO community, and the state as a whole to shut down one of their fastest growing campuses!
Weekly Reader: So what’s your solution? Bet I can guess — abolish public education (aka “gummint schools”) and give parents vouchers to send their kids to private schools.
That way rich families will get a nice subsidy to help pay their kids’ tuition at Andover and Choate, and middle-class families will have to send their kids to the educational equivalent of Wal-Mart. Typical “brilliant” Republican/conservative thinking.
I got a fine education in public schools and so did most Americans of my generation. The problem with public schools is not that they’re run by the “gummint” but that (a) the school day and school year are too short (compare ours with what other countries require) and (b) the schools don’t demand enough of the kids. For the latter, yes, I blame liberal educators and the whole “self-esteem” BS that started coming into fashion 20 years or so ago.
It’s the next bubble to pop, good, bad or indifferent.
And student guy, you’re money obviously isn’t going into your ability to spell and punctuate.
HBM, I’m all for funding public education. I’m against funding cushy unnecessary jobs at the top of the system, the NEA, the teachers unions, the advocates and activists with their “wish lists”. I’m against using kids as pawns by those groups for their own self preservation. If people at the top of the education system REALLY cared about educating kids, they would spend our tax money wisely and prudently to fulfill that mission. We give more and more to education, then the teachers, caught in the middle, are told to do more with less.
One thing I learned in school was that the “gummint” works for, and is accountable to, me as a citizen. I have every right to question my “gummint” when I think my tax money is being wasted or for any other reason. I remember one of the sayings in the 60’s was “question authority.” I guess the new saying now is “label the questioner.”
“And student guy, you’re money obviously isn’t going into your ability to spell and punctuate.”
Hahahahahah oh the irony.
I am sure the legislature is only planing to do to this Beaver what beavers were designed for.
GO DUCKS