Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

Before someone follows the tweets going around this week and post that tuition was increased because of the the football performance center let's set the record straight.

NO!!!

The University and athletic department have separate budgets. The operation of the university and the tuition are the result of tuition, donations, funds from the UO Foundation and state funds. Every year for the past twenty years funding from the state have been reduced. The state contribution is currently about $42M down from $68M just six years ago. Since the state funds are reduced each year the University must adopt new cost savings and increase tuition to balance the budget. I believe this years reduction is about $4M.

Who sets tuition? The students that protested at President Gottfriedson's Investiture seem to think he sets tuition. Wrong. Then it must be some secret committee with no transparency at the UO. Wrong. The OUS Board sets tuition. Remember them...they fired President Lariviere. They are appointed by the Governor. If you you are unhappy with tuition contact the Governor or you state representatives and request they direct more funds to UO and the other six member of the OUS system.

But wait..don't we have an our own board? Almost. After many years working with the legislature and Governor legislation was passed recently. We are awaiting appoints to see who will lead our University.

Is there a solution. Yes but Oregonians are too stubborn to do the right thing. A fixed 3% state sales tax with 1.5% dedicates to higher ed and and equal amount to K-12 would resolve the problem.

OK..off my soap box now.

Oregon's state funding per university student is among the lowest in the country. Some people don't realize just how much tuition has gone up in the past few years: almost 50% for in-state. For out of state, it costs 20k more for four years at the U of O than it used to.

(You acknowledged this, but it's useful to emphasize these alarming facts.)

Meanwhile, enormous amounts of money have gone into sports in the last decade. Hundreds of millions of dollars. That going on, coupled with the big price hikes imposed on students and their parents, is not easy to defend. If you think a university should prioritize students over athletics, the priorities here are all wrong.

A common defense of all this is what you say: that the money is coming from outside and thus not costing the U of O anything, and that no one at the U of O is responsible for tuition anyways. I think there's some truth to that but also some things left out.

For example, you say Gottfriedson deserves no blame for this. This would be true if Gottfriedson was advocating tuition reductions and simply was overruled. Instead, Gottfriedson recommended tuition hikes last year. Gottfriedson could demand that more money, either donor money or AD money, be funneled into academics. He could tell ultra-rich donors that if they want to build the most extravagant athletic building in the history of collegiate athletics they must first cover some of the tuition hike the university needs. He could do a lot of things. Instead, he does none of this. So he's facing pressure from students, and rightly so.

You're right, the biggest problem is the lack of money coming in from the state. But students and faculty can barely affect that, though it has been tried extensively. The people at the U of O, however, can be pressured, and so anger at the AD and Gottfriedson is justified and should continue. As long as enormous resources are devoted to an already-wealthy athletic program while students are asked each year to pay more and more, there is a problem, and no one who's in charge is blameless.

And let me just add, I've been a duck fan since I was a toddler. I've lucked duck sports literally for as long as I can remember. It's not natural for me to feel opposed to upgrades in U of O sports. I don't oppose the sports spending in principle, I oppose it when it's going on at the same time as I'm barely able to afford to go to school in my home state.

ducksvb6 wrote:Before someone follows the tweets going around this week and post that tuition was increased because of the the football performance center let's set the record straight.

NO!!!

The University and athletic department have separate budgets. The operation of the university and the tuition are the result of tuition, donations, funds from the UO Foundation and state funds. Every year for the past twenty years funding from the state have been reduced. The state contribution is currently about $42M down from $68M just six years ago. Since the state funds are reduced each year the University must adopt new cost savings and increase tuition to balance the budget. I believe this years reduction is about $4M.

Who sets tuition? The students that protested at President Gottfriedson's Investiture seem to think he sets tuition. Wrong. Then it must be some secret committee with no transparency at the UO. Wrong. The OUS Board sets tuition. Remember them...they fired President Lariviere. They are appointed by the Governor. If you you are unhappy with tuition contact the Governor or you state representatives and request they direct more funds to UO and the other six member of the OUS system.

But wait..don't we have an our own board? Almost. After many years working with the legislature and Governor legislation was passed recently. We are awaiting appoints to see who will lead our University.

Is there a solution. Yes but Oregonians are too stubborn to do the right thing. A fixed 3% state sales tax with 1.5% dedicates to higher ed and and equal amount to K-12 would resolve the problem.

OK..off my soap box now.

Further taxation is never an acceptable answer, especially ones that unfairly target the poor, as any study of sales taxes show.

Duck07 wrote:

ducksvb6 wrote:Before someone follows the tweets going around this week and post that tuition was increased because of the the football performance center let's set the record straight.

NO!!!

The University and athletic department have separate budgets. The operation of the university and the tuition are the result of tuition, donations, funds from the UO Foundation and state funds. Every year for the past twenty years funding from the state have been reduced. The state contribution is currently about $42M down from $68M just six years ago. Since the state funds are reduced each year the University must adopt new cost savings and increase tuition to balance the budget. I believe this years reduction is about $4M.

Who sets tuition? The students that protested at President Gottfriedson's Investiture seem to think he sets tuition. Wrong. Then it must be some secret committee with no transparency at the UO. Wrong. The OUS Board sets tuition. Remember them...they fired President Lariviere. They are appointed by the Governor. If you you are unhappy with tuition contact the Governor or you state representatives and request they direct more funds to UO and the other six member of the OUS system.

But wait..don't we have an our own board? Almost. After many years working with the legislature and Governor legislation was passed recently. We are awaiting appoints to see who will lead our University.

Is there a solution. Yes but Oregonians are too stubborn to do the right thing. A fixed 3% state sales tax with 1.5% dedicates to higher ed and and equal amount to K-12 would resolve the problem.

OK..off my soap box now.

Further taxation is never an acceptable answer, especially ones that unfairly target the poor, as any study of sales taxes show.

I would gladly take a sales tax if state taxes were done away with.

To hell with targeting the working class.

I just went to Washington, for 5 days. Please no sales tax.