When I became the 15th president of Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in 2009, state appropriations totaled just over $9.5 million. Following a devastating flood, we began an aggressive campaign to modernize our campus, improve student access, and graduate more students than ever before. We experienced record growth in enrollment, scholarships and graduation rates — our future trajectory was soaring.
However, over the past decade, appropriations to NEO have decreased over $3 million, with $2 million of that occurring in just the last three years. NEO has been forced to cut nearly a third of our workforce.
Following last year’s $1.4 million cut, we eliminated seven full-time faculty positions and 20 full-time staff positions; we discontinued one academic program and two certificate programs; we shifted a portion of health-care costs onto our employees; we reduced scholarships; we raised tuition and fees; and we had to meet with our partners in Grove to discuss reductions to our Grove Center.
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This year, we are managing our nearly $500,000 reduction through a requested tuition increase and another reduction to our operations budget. NEO students, faculty and staff continue to bear the brunt of failed fiscal policies in Oklahoma. We will continue to pursue our strategic vision — to be a national leader in rural, residential community college education, but the budgetary reality makes that very difficult to attain.
Critics argue that colleges need to trim the fat, which is a phrase that translates to putting local people out of work and eliminating valuable student resources. The truth is that at NEO, there is no fat left to trim, and we can’t keep asking our employees to pay for the Legislature’s inability to provide stable funding for higher education. Because of yet another cut to higher education appropriations, students and Oklahoma families continue to pay more for the college education that they expect and deserve.
As a border institution, NEO must compete with two- and four-year colleges in Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas. All of these states have a better track record when it comes to funding higher education over the past five years. This means that many Oklahoma students will choose to attend out-of-state colleges. If we lose students before they enter college, nearly half of them will not return to Oklahoma.
A Brookings Institution report from 2015 found that 68 percent of two-year college graduates remain in the area of their college after graduating. Those students also contribute over $80,000 more to the local economy over their lifetime than a high school graduate. If we lose just 13 students to out-of-state schools because of ever-decreasing education funding, we lose over $1 million in local spending.
Each cut requires us to defer maintenance on our historic buildings at a time when students want updated, comfortable and affordable housing, modern facilities, smart classrooms and robust online resources.
College is the pathway to getting a good job for many Oklahoma students, but Ottawa County ranks in the bottom 20 percent when it comes to poverty in Oklahoma. NEO serves a community that relies on higher education to break the cycle. Our students use NEO to obtain the necessary training to enter Oklahoma’s workforce with higher salaries as a process technician, nurse, or information technology specialist. If we as a state want a long-term viable and stable economy, we must invest in our people. The greatest investment we can give them is access to a quality, affordable education.
We are sincerely grateful to our legislative team in northeast Oklahoma, but we all look forward to the day that we can establish a better working relationship with our most important partner, the state of Oklahoma.
Jeff Hale is president of Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami, Oklahoma
