\n<\/p>\n
Oregon\u2019s Higher Education Coordinating Commission recommends \u201cinstitutional integration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oregon\u2019s Higher Education Coordinating Commission is recommending that the state\u2019s public colleges and universities pursue \u201cinstitutional integration\u201d\u2014everything <\/strong>from sharing services and programs to full mergers. It is also seeking the power to renew, or terminate, academic programs. <\/p>\n The commissioners approved a document Tuesday with five recommendations, and integration and program review were listed first. Ben Cannon, the commission\u2019s executive director, said the vote was 13 to 2. <\/p>\n The report says public universities will run out of money in a few years if they don\u2019t continue to reduce costs. It cites \u201cslowing growth forecasts for state revenue\u201d and insufficient expected enrollment growth, adding that \u201cespecially given Oregon universities\u2019 unusually high dependence on tuition for revenue, this creates an unsustainable dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn 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,\u201d the report says. <\/p>\n While the report doesn\u2019t recommend recreating a statewide university system, it endorses \u201cincreasing systemness<\/em>,\u201d saying, \u201cOnly a few high-growth states can still afford a system of higher education built on the \u2018every campus for itself\u2019 model.\u201d<\/p>\n The commission\u2019s integration recommendation goes beyond just the universities\u2014it says the State Legislature should direct the commission, \u201cin consultation with all of Oregon\u2019s public higher education institutions, including community colleges,\u201d to come up with one or more proposals for integration by next January. It suggests, in one non\u2013full merger example, \u201ccombining services provided to the same region by a community college and a public university.\u201d <\/p>\n The commission also said lawmakers should require it to periodically review and renew universities\u2019 degree programs, adding that the law could require programs to \u201cdemonstrate that they produce value for students and communities, don\u2019t unnecessarily duplicate other institutional offerings\u201d and meet \u201cfinancial sustainability requirements.\u201d It said the review should consider \u201cimpacts on underrepresented students\u201d and not \u201cideological preferences\u201d or \u201cstrictly financial returns to the individual.\u201d <\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n \u201cIn four years, I\u2019ve made decisions that have eliminated 25\u00a0percent of our workforce. Imagine that happening at any other state entity,\u201d Bailey said, according to OPB. \u201cOur colleagues are all doing similar painful work, and so we have to ask, how much more efficient should our seven universities be?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oregon\u2019s Higher Education Coordinating Commission recommends \u201cinstitutional integration.\u201d Oregon\u2019s Higher Education Coordinating Commission is recommending that the state\u2019s public colleges and universities pursue \u201cinstitutional integration\u201d\u2014everything 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1868,11261,495,9853,21029,9229],"class_list":{"0":"post-40847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-body","9":"tag-endorses","10":"tag-higher","11":"tag-integration","12":"tag-mergers","13":"tag-oregon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}