
Colleges and universities should dedicate CARES Act funding to help ensure students have access to necessities such as food and housing. This can significantly reduce the number of students forced to drop out of school due to financial hardship and help secure Oklahoma’s economic recovery in the aftermath of COVID-19.
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By:
Guest
November 27, 2019 // Updated: November 27, 2019

About a third of university students and nearly two out of three community college students nationwide are food insecure, meaning they are uncertain where their next meal will come from.
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![[Image Source: "OSU in the morning" by sringsmuth licensed under CC BY NC ND 2.0]](https://okpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/OSU-in-the-morning-Oklahoma-State-University-Flickr-Springmuth-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0-150x100.jpg?x31514)
Oklahoma has not been immune from these issues, but the last legislative session saw state lawmakers provide an additional $25.3 million increase, or about 3.3%, in funding for higher education.
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By 2020, 67 percent of all jobs created in Oklahoma will require some college, a certificate or a college degree. Legislators would be wise to invest some of this year's growth revenue back into higher education so our economy can continue to thrive for years to come.
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Download this fact sheet as a printable pdf here.
Read about the rest of OK Policy’s 2019 Legislative Policy Priorities here.
Maintaining a robust system of higher education is vital to Oklahoma’s economic prosperity. Insufficient funding hampers Oklahoma’s ability to…
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By:
Anna Rouw
December 12, 2018 // Updated: May 2, 2019

Oklahoma has made encouraging progress on justice reform in recent years. Reforms passed in 2016 and 2018 will slow prison population growth and spur investments in rehabilitation. While these are important steps in the right direction, criminal justice reform should…
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By:
David Blatt
August 24, 2017 // Updated: May 2, 2019

Another national report is calling attention to Oklahoma’s drastic cuts to funding for colleges and universities in recent years. At a time when a college education has never been more critical for individual prosperity and state economic development, funding decisions…
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By:
Gene Perry
July 11, 2017 // Updated: May 2, 2019

For several years now, Oklahoma has led the nation in cuts to state aid funding of K-12 schools by reducing state aid per student 26.9 percent since 2008. That’s almost twice as much as the next worst state, Alabama. The results…
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The Oklahoma Legislature is close to passing a bill (SB 529) to make Oklahoma’s Promise scholarships available to more students. Available since 1996, these scholarships cover the cost of tuition for in-state students at an Oklahoma public college or university…
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By:
Gene Perry
May 25, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019

Overwhelmingly, the states where residents earn the highest wages also have the best-educated workforce. Both productivity and median wages in a state are strongly correlated with the percentage of residents with a college degree. At the same time, overall state…
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