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October 24, 2013 NaCAC College Fair 5
By KEVIN HARDEN
Pamplin Media Group
Oregon college students in the fu-
ture will probably pay for their ed-
ucation much differently than stu-
dents today.
Instead of a pile of loans to be repaid for
decades, Oregon college students could pay
for their education through deductions from
future paychecks or with state-funded grants.
Some students attending community college
also might not have to pay for their first cou-
ple of years.
That’s in the future.
Maybe many years in the
future, according to peo-
ple who are trying to
change the way students
pay for their college edu-
cation in the state.
“I can’t say that we’re
about to fundamentally
change the way we pay
for college,” says state
Rep. Michael Dembrow, a
Northeast Portland Dem-
ocrat who co-sponsored
legislation this year to
create a “Pay It Forward”
college funding plan.
“We’re initiating a path-
way that I hope will land
it at that point.”
The state is still “a few
years away” from chang-
ing the way college stu-
dents pay for their educa-
tion, Dembrow says.
“It could be changing,” says Jason Gettel, a
policy analyst for the Oregon Center for Pub-
lic Policy in Silverton, who has studied the
Pay It Forward legislation. “But that’s quite
far down the road.”
Mountain of debt
Pay It Forward is the brainchild of the Eco-
nomic Opportunity Institute in Seattle. Ore-
gon’s proposal — part of House Bill 3472 in
the 2013 session — is one of several similar
tuition payment changes proposed by the in-
stitute in legislatures in California, Vermont
and New York.
Here’s how the Pay It Forward program
would work: Oregon college graduates who
earn about $30,000 a year would pay 3 percent
of their annual income, based on an analysis
by the Oregon Center for Public Policy. That
would end up being about $75 a month for an
estimated two dozen years.
Students earning two-year degrees would
pay 1.5 percent of their annual income, ac-
cording to the proposal’s analysis.
With Oregon college students amassing an
average of $24,626 in debt when they graduate
(according to 2011 statistics), proposals to
ease the financial burden have been getting a
lot of attention from some lawmakers. During
the 2013 legislative session, state Treasurer
Ted Wheeler proposed using a $500 million
investment to create the Oregon Opportunity
Initiative, which would expand grants to Or-
egon high school seniors attending college.
The proposal was in committee when the
Legislature adjourned.
Across the nation, student debt soared in
2012 to more than $1 trillion. At the same
time, budget reductions during the past two
decades have prompted states to cut funding
for higher education. Oregon’s financing of
higher education dropped from a peak of $856
million in 2000 to $626 million in 2010. In 1990,
Oregon spent about $6,700 in tax dollars for
each college student. In 2010, that amount
dropped to about $4,000 per student.
n Lawmakers lay groundwork for fundamental changes to paying for a college degree
Future college students could
‘Pay It Forward’
PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP
Portland Community College students lined up on the first day of school in September at the Sylvania campus bookstore. Oregon lawmakers are working
on plans that could change the way students pay for their college educations.
CONTINUED / Page 6
“I can’t say
that we’re
about to
fundamentally
change the
way we pay
for college.
We’re
initiating a
pathway that
I hope will
land it at that
point.”
— State Rep.
Michael Dembrow