State funding for colleges, universities unchanged

Reimbursements for concurrent enrollment will increase

State funding for Oklahoma’s 25 public colleges and universities remains flat for fiscal year 2019, which begins July 1.

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education allocated its $776,707,167 in state dollars Friday, giving each institution the same amount it received one year ago.

Colleges and universities, however, will receive a higher reimbursement for concurrent enrollment tuition waivers — 60 percent more than they got this fiscal year.

Chancellor Glen Johnson thanked Gov. Mary Fallin and the Legislature for providing an additional $7.5 million for concurrent enrollment in the new budget.

“The concurrent enrollment program provides high school seniors the opportunity to earn college credit tuition-free while still in high school,” Johnson said.

Colleges and universities were reimbursed only 27 percent this year for the tuition waivers.

The additional $7.5 million brings concurrent enrollment’s total appropriation for FY19 up to $10.2 million, said Amanda Paliotta, vice chancellor for budget and finance.

“It’s just a little under 87 percent reimbursement level. I know that’s important to our institutions, and it’s important to our students to be able to keep that program strong,” Paliotta said.

Tulsa Community College President Leigh Goodson said TCC serves one in five concurrent students in the state. TCC extends the tuition waiver to juniors.

“During the past few years, we were able to continue serving high school juniors and seniors because of our commitment to improving college graduation rates, but knew we wouldn’t be able to sustain that level of service without restored funding,” Goodson said Friday.

“Tulsa Community College is glad to see the commitment from Oklahoma lawmakers to increase funding for concurrent enrollment,” she said. “We know from studies that completing college courses while still in high school increases the college graduation rate, while helping to decrease student debt.”

The only other change in higher education’s state appropriation this year is an additional $328,500 in pay for employees at the state regents office, Paliotta said. The money is part of the state employee pay package approved this year.

Employees at the colleges and universities were not included in the state employee pay bill.

Next month: Tuition

The colleges and universities will present their proposed FY19 operating budgets — including tuition and fee rates — to the state regents June 27. The regents will vote on those budgets at their June 28 meeting.

Regent Jay Helm, of Tulsa, encouraged all the schools to consider salary increases for faculty when crafting their budgets, noting the state is losing good faculty to better paying jobs elsewhere.

“Our research universities are losing key people. Just at the time that they’re reaching their peak, they’re being taken away from us,” Helm said.

And professors at twoyear colleges are making less than K-12 teachers, who are getting a significant pay raise in FY19, he said.

“We need to take care of our faculty, too,” Helm said.

Higher education’s FY19 state appropriation represents a 1 percent increase over the current fiscal year. The regents had requested a much larger increase to fund more faculty, student advisers, course offerings and scholarships.

“We will continue to make the case to restore appropriations to public higher education, which were cut $220 million or 22 percent in the last four fiscal years,” Johnson said. “Higher education is the best investment our policy leaders can make to ensure a brighter future for Oklahoma.”