Higher Ed spending up 66% over ten years

Spending at state colleges and universities this year is 66% higher than it was just 10-years ago according to data obtained by Oklahoma Watchdog through Open Records requests.  The Education and General (E&G) budgets of the 25 state colleges and universities grew from $1.29-billion in FY2003 to $2.13-billion in the current fiscal year.  As the chart below shows, while Oklahoma suffered two economic downturns during that period, spending never decreased at state colleges and universities.

The last three years, Oklahoma has experienced a revenue failure and two budget shortfalls, yet Higher Ed spending increased by 2.5%, 2.8% and 3.9% in those years.  The 3.9% increase this year comes despite state lawmakers decreasing state appropriations to Higher Ed by 5% in the budget.  Colleges and universities have other sources of revenue, primarily tuition and fees, which allowed spending to rise.  Every state college and university raised tuition and fees this year.

While every college and university’s budget is larger this year than a decade ago, the increases cover a wide range.  Rose State College has seen the smallest growth with its FY2012 budget only 18% larger than the FY2003 version.  Two schools have seen their budgets more than double during that time period: Northern Oklahoma College has seen growth of 115.5% and Western Oklahoma State College’s budget is up 104.6%.  The chart below shows the increases for each school.

To look at the percent change by institution by year, click on the chart below.  Note that of the 25 state colleges and universities, only six showed decreases in any of the last three years and only two of those (Rose State and USAO) had decreases in two of the last three years as the state budget shrunk.

The Oklahoma Watchdog story on each school is linked below.

Related posts:

• After years of spending more, Carl Albert State College trims budget
• Northern Oklahoma College slows growth, but spending more than doubles over last decade
• Rogers State University among those spending more during downturn
• Spending is up at Seminole State College
• Oklahoma’s smaller universities also spending more: Panhandle State

Posted by Oklahoma Watchdog on October 19, 2011. Filed under Oklahoma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry