Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission recommends “institutional integration.”
Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission is recommending that the state’s public colleges and universities pursue “institutional integration”—everything from sharing services and programs to full mergers. It is also seeking the power to renew, or terminate, academic programs.
The commissioners approved a document Tuesday with five recommendations, and integration and program review were listed first. Ben Cannon, the commission’s executive director, said the vote was 13 to 2.
The report says public universities will run out of money in a few years if they don’t continue to reduce costs. It cites “slowing growth forecasts for state revenue” and insufficient expected enrollment growth, adding that “especially given Oregon universities’ unusually high dependence on tuition for revenue, this creates an unsustainable dynamic.”
“On the current path universities will be forced to continue to make substantial cuts annually or, in aggregate, fund balances will be completely exhausted within an estimated three to five years,” the report says.
While the report doesn’t recommend recreating a statewide university system, it endorses “increasing systemness,” saying, “Only a few high-growth states can still afford a system of higher education built on the ‘every campus for itself’ model.”
The commission’s integration recommendation goes beyond just the universities—it says the State Legislature should direct the commission, “in consultation with all of Oregon’s public higher education institutions, including community colleges,” to come up with one or more proposals for integration by next January. It suggests, in one non–full merger example, “combining services provided to the same region by a community college and a public university.”
The commission also said lawmakers should require it to periodically review and renew universities’ degree programs, adding that the law could require programs to “demonstrate that they produce value for students and communities, don’t unnecessarily duplicate other institutional offerings” and meet “financial sustainability requirements.” It said the review should consider “impacts on underrepresented students” and not “ideological preferences” or “strictly financial returns to the individual.”
Oregon Public Broadcasting previously reported on the recommendations. It wrote that Southern Oregon University president Rick Bailey laid part of the blame for university cutbacks on stagnant state funding.
“In four years, I’ve made decisions that have eliminated 25 percent of our workforce. Imagine that happening at any other state entity,” Bailey said, according to OPB. “Our colleagues are all doing similar painful work, and so we have to ask, how much more efficient should our seven universities be?”
