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Students lobby Salem; take no chances on popular tuition freeze By Peter Wong SALEM -- A continued freeze on undergraduate tuition appears to command wide support in the Oregon Legislature, but students from Southern Oregon University are taking no chances this session. Kitzhaber's higher ed budget What Gov. John Kitzhaber proposes for higher education in 1999-2001: Total from general fund: $710.6 million, up from $605.9 million this budget period; excludes tuition, lottery proceeds, federal grants. New budget model in which dollars follow students: $44.7 million for per-student budgeting. Continuation of tuition freeze for two years: $15.3 million. Tuition for resident undergraduate students at Southern Oregon University would remain at $1,015 per term. Full-time students typically attend three terms per year. Targeted enrollment: $10 million for high-demand programs such as engineering and teacher training. Faculty pay: $5 million for selective increases, on top of what state employees may get. Source: 1999-2001 budget They have come to the Capitol a couple of times to urge lawmakers to continue the freeze, which would keep SOU's tuition for Oregon undergraduates at $1,015 per term. They also want to begin budgeting for state universities on a per-student basis. Betsy Fox, director of government affairs for SOU's student government, says the freeze is important for the short term and per-student budgeting for the long term. "The new budget model will provide SOU with more resources, but we have some concerns," she said. "Because future funding will be tied to the number of students, we are together with the big universities. So we want to make sure that we all start at the same line. "We feel we can compete for students, because Southern has some unique opportunities that larger campuses do not provide." Sophia McDonald, SOU's student body president, says universities need more state support if they are to begin a system that lets each campus keep the tuition and fees it generates from students. Up to now, the Legislature has set aside a lump sum for the Board of Higher Education to divide among the seven campuses. "It is not fair to continue to ask our institutions of higher education to do more with less," she said. "That is what we are doing right now." Direct state support for the university system has declined proportionately since 1991, the year after voters approved a property tax limit that channeled more of the state budget to elementary and secondary schools. Tuition increased -- SOU's rate jumped from $608 to $804 per term in 1991-92 -- and enrollments plunged. But after years of declining state support, offset partly by soaring tuition, the 1999-2001 budget of Gov. John Kitzhaber proposes a 17.3 percent increase in the state's contribution from the tax-supported general fund. Beyond what the system needs to maintain services in the next two years, $44.7 million would put per-student budgeting into effect; $15.3 million would continue the tuition freeze for two more years; $10 million would boost student enrollments in high-demand professions such as engineering and teaching, and $5 million would go toward pay increases for selected faculty. Kitzhaber also has proposed to link new college scholarships to high school students who show they can meet Oregon's new academic standards by earning certificates of initial mastery. Kitzhaber said he intends to ask for even more in two years to complete the transformation. The Legislature's budget subcommittee on education will begin public hearings on the higher education budget in April. Senate President Brady Adams, R-Grants Pass, wants the Legislature to add $25 million to Kitzhaber's request. Adams said what impressed him was the system's willingness to change the way it operates and measures results. Under the per-student budgeting model, campuses will be rewarded for student performance and other indicators. Adams said one reason he wants more money is his concern about the fate of the only three university campuses outside the Willamette Valley. They are SOU, Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, and Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. "If you have a model based on the number of students you can enroll, and you are not in a large metropolitan area, you may be at a disadvantage when you start," he said. Though a tuition freeze and the per-student budgeting model have support, Adams and House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass, R-Boring, said they are not sure things in the budget. In his plan to boost state aid for public schools to $4.9 billion, Rep. Lynn Lundquist, R-Powell Butte, has proposed to capture $15.3 million from shelving the tuition freeze. Lundquist, who chairs the Legislature's budget subcommittee on education, would leave intact additional state support for the per-student budgeting. SOU President Stephen Reno said his campus can compete for students under a new budget model because it is a relatively small campus and "every single course is taught by faculty, not by graduate students." The campus also has been designated as the system's showcase for fine and performing arts, environmental and natural sciences, and some business programs. But Reno said budget cuts earlier this decade have left SOU short of staff and space, and unable to cope fully with the demands of new technology and more nontraditional students. At 29 percent in fall 1997, SOU has the third highest proportion of part-time undergraduates in the system, behind Oregon Institute of Technology at 36 percent and Portland State University at 38 percent. "If you are a grocery store and people see only one kind of soup on the shelves, they will not come back to your store," he said. "Obviously, you cannot sell everything; you have to be selective. But if the Oregon public wants its public university system to operate more as a business -- and recognize that business operates in an increasingly competitive marketplace -- it has to be capitalized adequately." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA