Future funding

University honors college Presidential forum helps provide view of OSU's future

By: Craig Bidiman

Posted: 1/23/08

Last night President Ed Ray teamed up with the University Honors College to present a Presidential forum on fees, funding and financial responsibility.

"It was clear to me that relying on the state to supply us the funds we needed was unrealistic," Ray said. "Which is why we have to rely on private investors."

Ray and five other university representatives spoke in regards to tuition, resource fees, incidental fees and other general funding areas.

In 2003-05, the university received a small increase in state revenue, which allowed for a three percent increase in tuition rates. This posed more discussion for other fees and expenses.

A major concern brought forward by students in the honors college was their $250 enrollment fee.

Ray addressed this query, claiming the fee that honors college students pay goes directly to the department's general funds.

"I tend to feel the honors students are disproportional when it comes to participating in campus engagements all over the country," Ray said.

"Which is why it is important for a University to draw in the brightest students for their programs."

"Without our resources growing dramatically, we cannot grow our numbers effectively."

This differential in tuition being paid amongst students is also represented in different departments on campus.

Ray discussed that some of the weighing factors in his upcoming budget will be greatly influenced by the growth of interest in each department, with programs like agriculture, business and liberal arts all paying separate amounts of tuition.

In Ray's upcoming budget, which is presented every two years, he hopes to provide more funding for teachers to decrease class size. In order to provide the necessary means for this proposal, Ray explained the increases implemented each year.

"Tuition and fees can only go up as much as median household income goes up," Ray said.

This percentage of increase has been capped at 3.4 percent annually.

The OSU Foundation was represented by Shawn Scoville, campaign director for the OSU Foundation, who let it be known that Oregon State was the last Pac-10 school not to have a comprehensive fund-raising campaign.

"We would like more participation from students," Scoville said. "We rely a lot on the honors college students to help tell the story of the campaign."

Scoville went on to explain the funds of the campaign are continuously being drawn in from private donors.

Since their outing in October, the campaign has surfaced $81 million dollars, helping their running total exceed $386 million, over half way to their goal of $625 million.

Ray discussed the funding opportunities for individual departments.

"We get a lot of donations from non-alums, from people who just feel strongly about a certain department," Ray said.

"We do get some un-designated funds, not a lot, but the ones we do, we try to use them as properly as possible in areas that need the funding."

Ray furthered his discussion of his upcoming budget by outlining the area of central initiatives as an important element in the budget.

"This is something that benefits everyone," Ray said. "Everything starts in the middle, the centralized funds, the library, honors college and other student affairs."

A final point Ray touched on was concerning developing an enrollment scenario plan that would, if implemented correctly, bring up graduation rates and supply more upper division courses.

"Our goal is to find what our optimal student enrollment is with the given resource space we've inherited."

Craig Bidiman, senior reporter

news@dailybarometer.com, 737-2231