Higher Education

David Boren, Don Betz should correct the record

June 23, 2017

Trent England

It sounds terrible: “Continued cuts in state funding have landed Oklahoma dead last in the nation when it comes to state tax support for higher education, the 2017 Grapevine study shows.” Presidents Don Betz of the University of Central Oklahoma and David Boren of the University of Oklahoma both repeated the claim. Betz alleged Oklahoma has “been flirting with that ranking for some time.” Boren used it to convince his board of regents to adopt a tuition increase.

Except none of this is true. It isn’t even close.

The 2017 Grapevine study shows that 19 other states spend less on higher education than Oklahoma. Try to make it a more apples-to-apples comparison by factoring in different costs of living and our state jumps into the middle of the pack.

Yesterday, OCPA President Jonathan Small sent a letter to two Oklahoma university presidents to correct the record on claims about state funding to higher education. As you can see below, The Oklahoman already corrected the record in print yesterday. Hopefully our university presidents will do the same.

I talked about the issue on the radio show yesterday morning—you can listen to the podcast below (starts at 9:39) and find all our radio archives here.