A penny for your education

Less funding for higher education will weaken our economy

For several years, Oklahoma has led the nation in cuts to state aid funding of K–12 public schools. Oklahoma lawmakers have cut state aid per student by 26.9 percent since 2008—almost twice as much as the next worst state, Alabama. The results are clear. Many of our best teachers are leaving for other states, nearly one in five school districts have gone to 4-day weeks, arts, athletics, and STEM programs are being cut, class sizes are growing, and more.

These problems have gotten attention in state and national media—so much that Governor Fallin says she is having trouble convincing businesses to come to Oklahoma because of what they’ve heard about our education struggles. The state of higher education funding has drawn less attention, because even though the state’s support for higher education was also cut deeply, those cuts weren’t leading the nation.

Gene Perry is Policy Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute. For the rest of this article and more, visit okpolicy.org.