Higher ed on track for 1st funding increase in years

For the first time in four years, Oklahoma higher education will see an increase in state funding under the budget bill making its way through the Legislature this week.

An additional $7.5 million to pay for concurrent enrollment tuition waivers is included in Senate Bill 1600.

Rep. Kevin Wallace, R-Wellston, delivered the good news Wednesday during a meeting of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

Wallace, chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, said the House is set to pass the bill Friday. The Senate approved it Wednesday.

Concurrent enrollment allows high school juniors and seniors to earn college credit while still in high school. Seniors can take six credit hours per semester tuition-free. This fiscal year the Legislature funded the program at less than 27 percent of the cost and colleges had to cover the rest.

“Full funding for concurrent enrollment was our top priority this year,” higher education Chancellor Glen Johnson said.

Regents requested a budget increase of $128.3 million from the state for fiscal year 2019, which included a bump of $10.8 million for concurrent enrollment to cover 100 percent of the tuition waivers. The $7.5 million increase likely will be the only increase higher education gets. Regents thanked Wallace for his work toward that end.

Wallace said he is a big proponent of concurrent enrollment, noting his daughter will graduate from Wellston High School this year with 26 college credits.

He noted the regents have been putting $2.6 million additional money into the program each year and encouraged them to continue doing so.

During the 2016-17 academic year, 19,358 high school seniors statewide paid zero tuition for 91,035 college credits. Many seniors and juniors took additional hours not covered by the tuition waivers.

Proponents of concurrent enrollment want to cover the cost of more hours for seniors and extend the tuition waivers to high school juniors.

Other costs

Looking ahead to next year’s legislative session, Johnson said faculty compensation and overall operational issues will be of great concern to higher education following budget cuts of 23 percent in the past two years.

Regent Jay Helm, of Tulsa, said the teacher pay raises included in the new budget mean K-12 educators will be getting paid more than professors at two-year colleges.

And four-year schools are losing their professors to universities out of state that can pay them thousands of dollars more, Helm said.

“We’re going to have to address next year the inequities,” he said.

Wallace said all indications are the state budget picture will continue to improve.

“With the economy doing better, we will have more money to appropriate next year than we did this year, and I’m aware we need to restore cuts,” Wallace said.

“We made a great step for common education with (an increase of) almost 20 percent this year,” he said.

“We have to put more money back into the other agencies that have been cut.”