What is the best course for strengthening Oklahoma’s economy and providing broad-based benefits for Oklahoma families?

Proponents of cutting or eliminating the state’s personal income tax claim that doing so will boost the state’s economy. However, as University of Oklahoma economist Dr. Cynthia Rogers explained at our recent economists’ forum, economic research is highly inconclusive about the relationship between state taxes and economic performance. While the extent to which tax changes cause growth is not clear, the research clearly establishes that tax cuts that are funded by reducing spending on productive public goods such as infrastructure and education leads to economic decline.

While there is no clear connection between low taxes and economic success, there is a clear and strong correlation between the educational attainment of a state’s population and its economic well-being.  The chart below, created by the Massachusetts Budget Project based on 2009 Current Population Survey data,  plots all fifty states based on the percent of its workforce with a bachelor’s degree and the medium hourly wage worker of its workers. Medium hourly wage, which is the middle wage of all wages paid to workers, is one of the best measures of a state’s economic well-being because it ignores the effects of extremely high wages of a few workers and provides a fair picture of what a middle-class employee earns. Read the rest of this entry »

June Olsen double majored in economics and educational psychology at the University of Washington and currently works as a writer on all things education.

Benefits for veterans are an essential component of our country’s military program. Of course, there are federal veterans’ programs that provide a range of services and advantages for current and returning veterans, but the policies and implementations can vary from state to state.  Two of the most important areas in which veterans can receive benefits are education and health care. Often, a returning veteran needs re-education in order to integrate back into society—and without an accredited degree, career options are limited. Health care is also a vital provision, particularly for veterans who have been injured or disabled as a result of their service.

Oklahoma is considered one of the most veteran-friendly states—perhaps one of the top two in the nation. How does the veterans’ program in the state of Oklahoma compare to others in the country?

Health care: Oklahoma’s veteran centers and health benefits
Oklahoma has a total of 14 veteran health centers – 12 state-operated out-patient clinics and 2 federal medical centers for veterans. Oklahoma scores high marks for the number of facilities available to veterans. Eligibility requirements for care in these centers include 90 days or more of consecutive service during a major conflict, from World War II through the Iraq War. Veterans living with a significant disability are able to use these facilities with no out-of-pocket costs, and all disabled veterans have access to treatment at a reduced rate.  The medical care provided by Oklahoma’s centers for veterans include social, recreational, dietary, laboratory, X-ray, and pharmaceutical services for both in-patient and outpatient care. Read the rest of this entry »

The share of Oklahomans with a college education has lagged behind the national average for decades and in the last twenty years we’ve fallen even further behind.  Partly to blame is our lackluster college completion record.  Oklahoma has one of the lowest college graduation rates in the nation, with less than half (44.1 percent) of our enrolled students completing a degree within six years.  College completion rates for students of color in the state are particularly low, despite the fact that in recent years enrollment in higher education across race/ethnicity has seen dramatic improvement.  With the exception of Hispanic students, enrollment in public and private colleges and universities across the state is reflective of Oklahoma’s demographics:

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by flickr user pamhule used under a Creative Commons license.

[UPDATE: A previous version of the debt-to-degree chart misidentified Northwestern Oklahoma State University as a community college when it is a four-year university. The corrected chart reflects that NWOSU has the lowest debt to degree ratio among Oklahoma's public universities.]

We’ve previously discussed the overwhelming evidence that college is a good investment both for students and the state as a whole. The need for at least some college education to get a good job is greater than ever. That’s reflected in Oklahoma by record-breaking college enrollment.

Lawmakers are also taking a growing interest in Oklahoma’s higher education system, with much of their criticism focused on tuition increases. A bill has already been introduced to return the power to approve tuition increases to the legislature, reversing a 2003 change that gave the State Regents full control.

Rising tuition is a legitimate concern. However, advertised tuition rates are not the best way to evaluate colleges and universities for a number of reasons. Due to scholarships and financial aid, fewer than half of all public university students and fewer than 18 percent of private college students pay the full “sticker price” for their education.

What may be a better metric for how well students are being served by a school are the federal loan default rates. The federal government made or guaranteed more than 80 percent of all outstanding student loans this year. If a large proportion of students are unable to pay back their loans, that is a strong indicator that they are not able to find well-paying jobs after leaving school, with or without a degree. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.

This week OK Policy released a paper showing that state costs under the new federal health care law are likely to be modest and could even yield net savings.  Click here to access a 1-page summary of our issue brief: Health Care Reform and the State Budget: Savings Likely to Partly or Fully Offset Modest New Costs.

OK Policy testified this week before the Joint Committee on the Federal Health Care Law.  Click here for our presentation exploring Oklahoma’s options for implementing state health insurance exchanges, a major requirement of the new law.  Read the Tulsa World’s coverage of our paper along with a summary of the committee meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is by OK Policy intern Emily Callen. Emily is a senior at the University of Tulsa, where she is pursuing a major in Biology and a minor in Economics. A longtime wonk-in-training, Emily has for years been boring her college friends by quoting statistics at parties. 

Photo by flickr user pamhule used under a Creative Commons license.

Last month, Governor Fallin released her plan  to increase by two-thirds the number of students graduating from Oklahoma’s public colleges and universities. At the same time, some Oklahoma lawmakers and other critics are questioning the state’s spending on higher education, arguing that colleges and universities should face the same budget cutbacks as other areas of government and the legislature should limit tuition increases.

Tuition and fees in Oklahoma remain comparatively inexpensive, but we have not avoided the nationwide trend of rising costs at both public and private universities. We certainly should take this trend seriously and work to ensure college is affordable and accessible to students from diverse backgrounds.

Yet even though the cost is rising, the value of a college education remains very high. Oklahoma should maintain strong investments in higher education for several reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs.  Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. E-mail your suggestions for In The Know items to gperry@okpolicy.org. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.

State Treasurer Ken Miller criticized Gov. Fallin and legislative leadership for crafting a disappointing business-as-usual budget agreement.  Public colleges and universities facing higher enrollment will have to raise tuition rates and shrink staff after $44 million in budget cuts during the past two years.  Citizens and lawmakers rallied against the scheduled closure of seven parks across the state.  The Oklahoma House passed a bill requiring DHS to make a plan to close two facilities that care for 250 severely disable residents.

On Wednesday the Senate reconsidered and approved a $70M transportation bond issue that was central to the state’s FY ’12 budget agreement.  Legislative leaders announced the creation of a special joint committee that will hold public meetings on federal health-care reform during the interim.  The Oklahoman has an editorial criticizing policymakers for including schools in an ongoing political battle over gun rights.

A bill to abolish the Indian Affairs Commission passed the House Wednesday and a $40 million bond issue to finish the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum is dead for the year.  The Norman City Council discussed how to spend the surplus revenue raised by a half-cent sales tax increase.  The governor signed a bill putting the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission under the auspices of the attorney general’s office.

In today’s Policy Note, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research examines the changes to employment policies and practices mandated as part of sex and race employment discrimination litigation.

Read on for more. Read the rest of this entry »

In the spring of 2003, Saul Munoz* was a Tulsa high school senior thinking seriously about his future.  Saul’s parents had moved the family to Oklahoma years earlier, leaving Mexico at a time of increasing violence and instability, and he was not a legal U.S. resident.  A member of the National Honor Society, ranked in the top ten in his class, and enrolling in extra math and science classes to graduate with a Certificate of Distinction, Saul worried constantly about what would happen after graduation.  He couldn’t enroll in college and even if he were allowed to enroll he knew his family would struggle with the tuition payments.  His teachers, unaware of his immigration status, peppered him with questions about his plans and couldn’t understand why a student so smart and so clearly driven was not more proactive about applying for admission and scholarships. In February, a few months before graduation, Saul heard about a bill making its way through the state legislature. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I was in Washington, D.C. attending a meeting of the SEED state policy partners. This is an initiative led by CFED, a national non-profit organization that is a pioneer in the field of asset development, that brings together Oklahoma and other states working on efforts to develop state-level approaches to promote children’s savings accounts (CSAs). CSAs are meant as ways to expand opportunities for children in low- and moderate-income families to save and build assets from an early age towards achieving the pillars of lifelong economic success – attending and completing college, owning a home, starting a business, or saving for retirement.

Our meeting featured a very interesting presentation from Kathie Little of the College Board, which has recently released a report recommending reforms in the system of federal student aid for higher education. For most American families, paying for college is a growing concern. According to the College Board’s annual Trends in College Pricing report, the average cost of a public 2-year college is over $14,000, while for a public in-state 4-year college, the total cost exceeds $18,000. Since 1979, the cost of a 4-year public college, including tuition, fees, and room and board, has almost tripled in inflation-adjusted terms, far exceeding the increase in average incomes. Students from all income groups have become increasingly reliant on financial aid to meet the costs of higher education, with federal student loans making up the largest share of this aid. In 2007-08, federal student loans amounted to $43.8 billion.

Read the rest of this entry »