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After Years Of Cuts, Oklahoma Higher Education Regents Seek Funding Increase

Chelsea Stanfield / KOSU
Signs remind Oklahoma State University students of COVID-19 precautions.

Oklahoma's Regents for Higher Education are asking for a funding increase. But even if they get it, the state’s public colleges still won’t be funded as well as they were a decade ago.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state’s higher ed budget has been slashed to pre-21st century levels. And Oklahoma’s regents know money will be tight in the budget next year.

But they want to stop the hemorrhaging of public money to higher education.

They’re asking lawmakers for an additional $88 million. That’s less than a third of what the legislature has cut from higher ed since 2008.

Across the country, as states disburse less money to schools, the cost of a college education is being shifted to students, in the form of tuition and fees. Almost half of Oklahoma’s college graduates finish school with debt.

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Robby Korth joined KOSU as its news director in November 2022.
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