This is a flyer OSU-Cascades used to attract students to its first class of students at the new campus.

The enrollment story for higher education in most of the country is: decline.

Undergraduate enrollment is going backward, though it seems to have slowed to the backward of before the pandemic, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The two-year decline of undergraduates across the country was 4.2% since 2020.

Not at Oregon State University — Cascades.

Enrollment went up more than 16% for first year students over last year. The 2022 fall class was up to 204.

It’s a newer campus so growth isn’t necessarily unexpected. But it does also mean this community’s university is getting things right. It’s an attractive campus. Attractive offerings. Talented faculty and staff. And surely the location next to great opportunities in the great outdoors and in Bend don’t hurt. either.

OSU-Cascades put out some interesting numbers last week. Most of the students in the new class are from Oregon, nearly 76%. Short of a third are students of color, 28%. And overall the school has 74 students out of a total enrollment of 1,271 who are receiving veterans benefits.

Alongside the efforts to keep building up the success OSU-Cascades, there have been efforts to put on the brakes.

In 2017 then-House Speaker Tina Kotek justified the Legislature directing so little funding to OSU-Cascades because there was not enough consensus to invest in a brand new campus “out there.” Of course, much has happened since then to Kotek and the campus.

But in 2021 state Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, did introduce a bill to squash OSU-Cascades — sever the relationship between OSU-Cascades and OSU and prohibit the school from ever offering anything above a master’s degree. Sure, the bill died. Evans was just re-elected, though. Perhaps he will try again.

As much as students find OSU-Cascades attractive and as much as it is an asset to Central Oregon, there will be those who fight it.