The early part of the Oregon Legislature’s session is full of primers on where legislators could invest revenues.

Higher education is one option. On Wednesday, Ben Cannon, the executive director of the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission, took members of the Senate Committee on Education on a tour of where Oregon is at in higher education funding.

Spoiler alert: Oregon is near the bottom or near the middle when compared to many other states in many categories.

Oregon is 37th in state investment in public education for higher education appropriations per student full time equivalent. In 2023, Oregon was at about $8,400. The national average was around $11,000.

Oregon’s tuition and fees for community colleges are the second highest in the West at $6,464 per academic year. Oregon’s tuition and fees for its public four-year institutions are No.1, meaning the most expensive, at $13,440 per academic year. Tuition and fees are set by the boards of those institutions, but the level of support from the state is inescapably important.

And the amount that Oregon students provide for their education at public universities has grown over the years. In the 1960s in Oregon, the state support was about 75%. It is now about 25%.

Can we promise you that if Oregon spent more, more students would get degrees and go on to live more productive lives? Can we promise that more students would be saddled with less debt?

No, we can’t promise it. It seems likely.

The state budget crafted this session will be a decision about what wins and what loses for the next two years. Share your opinion with your legislators.